Honda FCX

[VR17]

i dont know if anyone posted info about this but, its a zero-emissions fuel-cell vehical. using a hydrogen tank, fuel cell battery and a "powerful motor".

anyways..

what you guys think?

 

source: honda.com

[airjordan223]

that interior is sweet, the outside looks like the prius. what exactly is "powerful?" i see they have 62 on the speedo, i have a feeling thats top speed.

[VR17]

some more pics, cause im bored......

 

i read on honda.com that ''they" said, it is a powerful motor, most hybrid engines arent even that fast(not saying this will be).. but im sure it blow the prius out of the water.

[airjordan223]

its probably going to be pretty light too. i bet within 10 years we wont "need" gas cars. the technology is out, its just developing still.

[BuddySol]

Fuel Cell > Hybrid > That stupid gas made of corn

 

ANYHOW, I believe the top speed is actually 100mph and this thing is pretty decent acceleration-wise...well Honda Accord V6-ish but that's pretty good considering it's an alternative fuel. This definitely is way better than a Prius and larger too. It's suppose to come with a 3 year lease for $600/month. The monthly also covers maintenance as well as collision insurance. Considering the amount of features on the car, things that not even Acuras have like ventilated seats, it is well worth the buy. The vehicle is only available where fuel cell stations are located and that is only in Southern California. Hopefully the rest of the nation wakes up and sees that fuel cells are a better alternative to gas.

[CleanGSR]

So this converts Hydrogen and Oxygen into electricity. Chemically speaking this completely makes sense and this technology has been developed for over a decade. My question. Why are they setting this up where you need to hit a Hydrogen fill station? Why not set it up to fill with H20 which it then converts to the seperate Hydrogen and Oxygen? Sure, it may cost a little more up front, but it would essentially be a stand alone car that you could refill at home.

 

Edit: Oh, I think it's a tie (regarding best Green car) between this and the fully electric tesla roadster. Not to mention that the engineers with the Tesla roadster are working toward the add on option of body panels made out of solar panels so the car could be almost completely self sufficient.

 

The only catch is that the tesla roadster is more expensive since it's not a big name company. Give that technology a few years and it could be a good race between fully electric, self sufficient cars and Fully Hydrogen powered, nearly self sufficient cars. (and I don't mean a physical race, I mean a manufacturers race)

[SIR_VTEC]

Kinda looks like the CRX with that weird looking panel in the back....but interior is sweet, not so much the exterior

[TS John]

The interesting thing about these "zero-emissions" vehicles is that they're really not.

 

Electric power for the Tesla Roadster comes from somewhere, and the majority of power plants are still burning fossil fuels or using nuclear power, which creates hazardous waste. Until we switch to completely using hydro/air/solar power or something else that is completely renewable and doesn't emit greenhouse gases there won't be anything that's "zero-emissions" even if it is fully electric.

 

Also, the biggest greenhouse gas is water vapor, not CO2, so unless they have paid attention to disposal of the water vapor emissions of the fuel-cell cars somehow then they could potentially be more damaging to our atmosphere (from a global warming perspective) than standard gasoline engines.

 

Granted, it's easy to turn water vapor back into water, so I'm sure they've thought of it. And also granted that an electric car is still going to be a more efficient user of fossil fuels than the most efficient of gas-powered engines.

 

Nate brings up some interesting points. A car you fill up at home with your garden hose or a car that recharges itself all day when you park it in the sun. I feel like it won't be too long until those are real possibilities. Pretty exciting.

[CleanGSR]

The interesting thing about these "zero-emissions" vehicles is that they're really not.

 

Electric power for the Tesla Roadster comes from somewhere, and the majority of power plants are still burning fossil fuels or using nuclear power, which creates hazardous waste. Until we switch to completely using hydro/air/solar power or something else that is completely renewable and doesn't emit greenhouse gases there won't be anything that's "zero-emissions" even if it is fully electric.

 

Also, the biggest greenhouse gas is water vapor, not CO2, so unless they have paid attention to disposal of the water vapor emissions of the fuel-cell cars somehow then they could potentially be more damaging to our atmosphere (from a global warming perspective) than standard gasoline engines.

 

Granted, it's easy to turn water vapor back into water, so I'm sure they've thought of it. And also granted that an electric car is still going to be a more efficient user of fossil fuels than the most efficient of gas-powered engines.

 

Nate brings up some interesting points. A car you fill up at home with your garden hose or a car that recharges itself all day when you park it in the sun. I feel like it won't be too long until those are real possibilities. Pretty exciting.

 

Okay a couple of things. I'm pretty sure when we say zero emissions we are talking about operating, not production. Making cars that operate as zero emissions is a huge step forward.

 

Second. Water Vapor? THat' horribly wrong. You seriously think that H20 is the cause of global warming? Global warming is cause from the increasing CO2 in the air trapping the heat inside the atmosphere. THe sun should hit the earth and bounce back out but the C02 is preventing more of the solar energy from leaving the earth, trapped inside. Water vapor has nothing to do with it except the fact that you're going to have more water vapor from the increased heat.

 

 

We just went over this in chem. You can't turn water vapor back into water.....they're the same exact thing, just different states of matter. Water vapor is H20 in gaseous form.

[wannaBstuntin]

You can't turn water vapor back into water.....they're the same exact thing, just different states of matter. Water vapor is H20 in gaseous form.

You trun it back to water by cooling it then correct?

 

I don't think we'll ever be able to fill up cars with water out of a garden hose. I'm sure if a car were to run on water, it would need to be filtered fairly well.

[CleanGSR]

You trun it back to water by cooling it then correct?

 

No. It's already water, just in gaseous form. You can't turn in back into something when it already is that something. You turn it back into a liquid state by cooling, but that's not always true either. Water can turn into vapor at many temps, not just boiling point and above. The higher temps just determine how fast it turns to vapor.

 

Ever leave an almost empty glass of water sitting around for awhile. You come back in a few days and the water is gone because it evaporated and turned to vapor. You don't need heat for that to happen. Same goes in reversal.

 

Bottom line is there's not point in turning it back into liquid state.....just doesn't make sense.

 

In short

 

ICE is water

Water vapor is water

liquid water is water

[xer0]

what about a tea pot

[wannaBstuntin]

Thank you for the in-depth analysis Hung.

Cause knowledge is power!

[BuddySol]

I'm guessing having the car itself make it's own hydrogen out of water is actually energy loss...since not only are you trying to power an engine you are also powering the mechanisms to convert that energy. That's what I took away from it. Anyhow, Honda has created home fueling stations and has been testing them for a while. They are actually on their 4th iteration which uses natural gas to create hydrogen energy which can be used in the car as well as at home reducing energy cost at home. I don't know when these will be available to the market, but I'm guessing as soon as fuel cell technology takes a hold within the market.

 

I'm sure an all electric car will be the most efficient, but as it stands right now, commercially the fuel cell will provide a cleaner burning car without much sacrifice to the environment while still providing performance and comfort unmatched by hybrids and ethanol.

[Ben.]

I bet it idles to the tune of "homohomohomohomohomohomohomohomohomo", and as it drives by a by-stander, it goes "iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii'mgay"

[BuddySol]

I bet it idles to the tune of "homohomohomohomohomohomohomohomohomo", and as it drives by a by-stander, it goes "iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii'mgay"

 

 

Knock, Knock

 

Who's There?

 

Me...I KILL YOU!

[Ben.]

STOP TOUCHING MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.......!

 

IIIIIIIIII KILL YOUUUUUUUU.........!

[TS John]

Nate, I'm not trying to argue with you but this is actually something that interests me so let's talk about it:

 

You may have just studied this in chemistry. I'd be interested to hear what your professor said about it, since honestly I haven't devoted much study to the issue. Did he actually comment on the greenhouse gas nature of water vapor or are you just assuming that it has no effect.

 

In my astronomy class we were just talking about this exact topic (ie greenhouse gases) and how Venus' surface temp is incredibly high mostly because of all the clouds that surround the actual planet in the atmosphere. The clouds, for the most part, are made of water vapor as they are on earth. This is actually what traps heat in, even more than CO2.

 

It's possible that this is wrong -- all I'm saying is that is verbatim what my professor told us, so a bit of research might be merited for this issue.

 

Also, I certainly agree with you that zero-emissions under operating conditions is a huge step forward. I'm pretty excited about what the future will hold.

[Pballer2005]

Are you my virgins?!?

 

It takes a fair amount of energy to convert enough water into H2 and O to be used. I thought that people where justing burning to H2 in their engines and when it bruns it combines with oxygen and you get water all over again. seems like this would be easier and cheaper to make an engine burn H2, rather than starting all over again. and your exhaust would just be steam, and since its a reaction just involving the two pure molocules you could even drink the water.

[TS John]

I'm not exactly sure what this means.^

 

Here's some things about water vapor as a greenhouse gas from this wikipedia article:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gases

 

The major greenhouse gases are water vapor, which causes about 36–70% of the greenhouse effect on Earth (not including clouds); carbon dioxide, which causes 9–26%; methane, which causes 4–9%, and ozone, which causes 3–7%. It is not possible to state that a certain gas causes a certain percentage of the greenhouse effect, because the influences of the various gases are not additive. (The higher ends of the ranges quoted are for the gas alone; the lower ends, for the gas counting overlaps.)[3][4] Other greenhouse gases include, but are not limited to, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and chlorofluorocarbons (see IPCC list of greenhouse gases)

 

Water vapor is a naturally occurring greenhouse gas and accounts for the largest percentage of the greenhouse effect, between 36% and 66% [13]. Water vapor concentrations fluctuate regionally, but human activity does not directly affect water vapor concentrations except at local scales (for example, near irrigated fields).

 

Current state-of-the-art climate models include fully interactive clouds[14]. They show that an increase in atmospheric temperature caused by the greenhouse effect due to anthropogenic gases will in turn lead to an increase in the water vapor content of the troposphere, with approximately constant relative humidity. The increased water vapor in turn leads to an increase in the greenhouse effect and thus a further increase in temperature; the increase in temperature leads to still further increase in atmospheric water vapor; and the feedback cycle continues until equilibrium is reached. Thus water vapor acts as a positive feedback to the forcing provided by human-released greenhouse gases such as CO2.[15]

[CleanGSR]

Nate, I'm not trying to argue with you but this is actually something that interests me so let's talk about it:

 

You may have just studied this in chemistry. I'd be interested to hear what your professor said about it, since honestly I haven't devoted much study to the issue. Did he actually comment on the greenhouse gas nature of water vapor or are you just assuming that it has no effect.

 

In my astronomy class we were just talking about this exact topic (ie greenhouse gases) and how Venus' surface temp is incredibly high mostly because of all the clouds that surround the actual planet in the atmosphere. The clouds, for the most part, are made of water vapor as they are on earth. This is actually what traps heat in, even more than CO2.

 

It's possible that this is wrong -- all I'm saying is that is verbatim what my professor told us, so a bit of research might be merited for this issue.

 

Also, I certainly agree with you that zero-emissions under operating conditions is a huge step forward. I'm pretty excited about what the future will hold.

 

Greenhouse effect info is from my own research not my chem teacher. The stuff that's from the chem teacher is the part about water vapor and how it's the exact same chemical composition (H2O) as water and/or ice. Just in gaseous form. Of course there's a lot of water vapor in the clouds......that's how we get rain, the clouds get so clogged with water vapor that they can't hold anymore and "burst". This has nothing to do with global warming or green house effect. Global warming/greenhouse effect is caused by how much of the sun rays are able to escape the atmosphere after bouncing off the earth. CO2 buildup in the atm makes it so not as much of the solar "bounce" can escape. Some still escapes, just not as much....and not enough.

 

Many people don't realize that we aren't the cause of global warming. It's a natural cycle of a planet like earth. THe problem is the rate at which we are moving along the path. We are speeding up the process by catostrophic amounts. Nobody's goal is to stop global warming....the goal is to restore global warming to it's natural speed or path.

[TS John]

I agree with the above post on all accounts except that I would edit this statement:

 

Global warming/greenhouse effect is caused by how much of the sun rays are able to escape the atmosphere after bouncing off the earth. Water Vapor and CO2 buildup in the atm makes it so not as much of the solar "bounce" can escape.

 

Edit: I like how you are an informed person on here. That's what this forum needs more of.

[CleanGSR]

I'm not going to argue that water vapor probably plays a role. However, I'm extremely confident that the role that water vapor plays is not nearly as high as CO2. I also believe that water vapor is only an issue because of the higher temps cause in large portion to the increased CO2. The increased temps will cause more water to evaporate hence creating more water vapor.

[TS John]

Yeah, that's exactly what it said in the article quote I posted. Kind of a viscious cycle.

 

Again, I'm not trying to argue at all. My study into the subject has been brief and cursory at best so I'm just talking.

 

Interesting stuff, though. Think you'll be as excited about hydrogen fuel-cell cars when they're commercially available as gas-powered models? I sorta feel like the excitement will be gone...

[VR17]

wow what an essay you guys are typing..

anyways, ive made a post about th 2005 FCX model and that thing was ugggly, this one looks alot better considering its a somewhat form of a civic sedan. the 2005 FCX is just a prototype, and this was what i found on their website.. now to explain the question about how yah gonna fuel cell it, im pretty sure sooner or later they are gonna have few fuel stations, or if your rich enough, i read that you can install one yourself, in your home. pretty cool idea, just charge it at my crib when i get one of demz.. , the interior looks sweet, i imagine it would feel as comfy as a honda fit, except for the rear seatings.. and if they made it looks a lil bit decent in the front.