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2017 Honda Clarity Fuel Cell

At each new hydrogen-fuel-cell car introduction comes the assertion from the proud maker that its car is no longer a science experiment. The 2017 Honda Clarity fuel cell finally gives credence to that platitude. It actually realizes the potential that hydrogen-fuel-cell engineers have long worked toward: to make the fuel-cell hardware entirely invisible from the driving experience. Built on a dedicated platform that also will spawn a battery-electric version and a plug-in hybrid later this year, the fuel-cell Clarity drives just like a battery-powered electric car. Nearly all of the deal-breakers that have branded previous efforts as science experiments—the strident vacuum-cleaner sounds, poor packaging, sluggish performance—have been purged.

Hit the start button and there’s little to be heard from the driver’s seat. Press the accelerator moderately and the response is instantaneous and confidence inspiring—although the Clarity’s sprightliness fades somewhat above 60 mph or so. After all, the fuel-cell Clarity is an electric car; there are no dueling power sources sending torque to the wheels, just a single AC motor that delivers its peak 221 lb-ft right from the start. Step into it a little more and what you do hear, perhaps delayed by a second or two, is a turbulent whoosh of air from an electrically driven air compressor, force-feeding fresh air into this electric car’s onboard generator, the fuel-cell stack. The sounds lack any semblance of the whine made by the feline shriek of the Roots-type blower in the previous model, yet it supplies air at up to 70 percent greater pressure. It’s certainly a notch quieter than the Toyota Mirai, and ride quality isn’t bad either.

Otherwise, the fuel-cell Clarity drives like a very heavy Accord that is entirely aware of the added girth and doesn’t try any fancy dance moves. It tops 4000 pounds, despite an aluminum hood, doors, fenders, and trunklid. Honda says the Clarity’s center of mass is slightly lower than that of the Accord hybrid, but the prevailing impression is that it feels far more nose-heavy in tight corners than its claimed 57/43 front/rear weight distribution suggests. The steering is precise, but it could be weighted stronger on-center. Selecting Sport mode—signaled by red highlighting for the gauge cluster—gives you sharper accelerator response as well as what will be welcomed on mountain roads: more regenerative braking. The brakes themselves are precise and easy to modulate.

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Honda doesn’t disclose the Clarity’s coefficient of drag, but you definitely don’t hear wind turbulence around the cowl and side glass at fast cruising speeds the way you do in the Chevrolet Bolt EV. That’s partly due to Honda’s comprehensive approach for keeping the cabin quiet. There’s acoustic glass used not just for the windshield but also for the door glass plus other noise-abating strategies that keep everything from road coarseness to motor whine at bay. Active noise cancellation was deemed unnecessary.

Stash the Stack

A fuel-cell stack consists of many waferlike layers, each of which harnesses a chemical reaction between oxygen and hydrogen, producing some waste heat, water vapor, and electricity. Honda has been working on hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles for 20 years, and in that time the fuel-cell stacks have gone from nearly steamer-chest sized to the volume of a modest carry-on suitcase. With this latest generation, Honda has pushed the efficiency of the stack over the 60 percent mark, increasing power to 103 kW, while cutting its physical volume by one-third. With the drive unit’s height reduced, too, the whole assembly (cell stack and motor) can fit under the hood for the first time, essentially taking up the same space as a V-6 engine and transaxle.

That rights some packaging weirdness of its predecessor, the FCX Clarity, in which Honda put the suitcase-sized fuel-cell stack between the front seats, cutting into interior space and making that vehicle a four-seater. With more space reserved for occupants, Honda has worked to normalize the interior packaging in the 2017 Clarity. There’s excellent space for four adults, with decent legroom all around and even reasonable headroom in back; five occupants fit, provided those in back don’t mind sitting close together. The front seats have long cushions and good support as well. There is one packaging sore point: The hydrogen is stored in two aluminum-lined, composite-reinforced cylindrical tanks; the larger of them (31 gallons) sits just behind the rear seatbacks and the smaller one (6 gallons) lies under the rear seats. The large hydrogen tanks enable a claimed 366-mile range, at the expense of cargo space. The trunk’s meager 12-cubic-foot volume is even worse than it sounds, as the space is deep only at the rearmost portion while one can only stuff softer items in what amounts to a ledge at the forward section. Also, there’s no folding rear seatback or pass-through.

Because the fuel cell still takes a few seconds to ramp up to its peak generation, an air-cooled, 1.7-kWh lithium-ion battery pack (the size of a couple of laptops and located under the front seats) ensures that full power is always on tap. The pack acts as an energy buffer and has its own monitor at the far left side of the gauge cluster. Blast up to speed, foot to the floor—actually “waft” is a better term for it here, with apologies to Rolls-Royce—after you’ve been puttering along, and it’s the secret to the Clarity’s consistent, strong responses. You can churn through more than half of the battery’s reserves in well under a minute, but once the fuel cell has been whooshing away and you ease off the accelerator, the battery recovers rapidly, fed both from the stacks and from regenerative braking.

Clean Inside, Functionally Cluttered on the Outside

The design and styling of the Clarity are polarizing from the outside. From some angles it looks like it could be a future-generation Accord, while at other angles the Citroën DS comes to mind, and it’s peppered with hints of the original Insight—most notably in the two-piece rear glass that aids visibility. The design surely has more grace than that of the Toyota Mirai, and a few of the things that might look gimmicky are actually functional: For instance, the carved-out ducts in the lower rear doors are the first of their kind in any production sedan, Honda says.

The cabin is superbly trimmed, with high-quality finishes that would look at home in an Acura. Honda calls the interior concept Advanced Modern Lounge, which after some time in the car we read to mean mature and luxurious. Materials with a reduced environmental footprint have been used for nearly 80 percent of interior surface areas. The matte-finish, open-pore woodgrain on the dash isn’t real, Honda confessed, but it looks like it is.

Getting One’s Fill

One serious issue we’ve had with previous fuel-cell vehicles was getting a true fill—important if you need the vehicle’s maximum range. Honda claims to have solved this problem. The 10,000-psi tanks take just three to five minutes to fill, with full support from SAE’s J2601 protocol and its two-way communication to compensate for ambient air conditions.

Yet when we hopped into the car, with the tank having been filled less than 10 miles previous, the gauge cluster indicated 221 miles to empty—far less than the claimed 366-mile range. Again that afternoon, after another refilling, the estimated range briefly indicated around 260 miles before plummeting again. Officials said that the trip computer was responding to the way the car had been driven. Nevertheless, that’s a big gap, especially considering the trip computer indicated an average of about 55 miles per kilogram of hydrogen on a hilly, curvy route, followed by just over 60 miles per kilogram in more relaxed driving. The fuel-cell Clarity’s range estimate is based on an EPA-rated 68 MPGe city and 66 MPGe highway (one kilogram of hydrogen has roughly the same energy content as a gallon of gasoline, and the Clarity can hold 5.5 kilos).

At $16.47 per kilogram, based on the station we visited, those fill-ups would cost about $90. But as part of the Clarity’s $369-per-month lease—the only way you can get one, so never mind its $59,365 sticker price—Honda is throwing in both $15,000 worth of hydrogen (good for more than 50,000 miles, by our estimate) as well as up to 21 days of complimentary luxury-vehicle rentals for when you want to escape the Golden State or go out of town and not be in a cold sweat about range. The Clarity is also eligible for the sought-after California High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) sticker, which grants access to carpool lanes even when driving solo.

Locations, Locations, Locations

It’s unfortunate timing that such fuel-cell vehicles are arriving just as long-range electric cars are starting to make sense. That’s a sticking point. Honda officials are pragmatic about the prospects for fuel cells, given that in the foreseeable future no single technology is likely to win out. As one spokesperson put it, the FCX Clarity sold in the hundreds. Honda wants to sell the fuel-cell Clarity in the thousands, over several model years. Through a partnership with General Motors, a higher order of magnitude is within sight, as these automakers are collaboratively developing a smaller next-generation stack that will be assembled in Michigan.

The hydrogen fuel cell has come a long way, but its supporting infrastructure has not. Consider that there are about 150,000 places to refuel a gasoline-powered vehicle today in the U.S.—and jerry cans and AAA fills if you can’t seem to work with that. Go electric, and there are more than 2000 publicly accessible fast-charging locations in the U.S., where most electric cars can get the better part of a recharge in the time it takes to grab lunch; less ideally, there are more than 14,000 Level 2 charging locations where you could plug in for a few hours. And the 120-volt outlets at home or at work are a snail’s-pace backup. By contrast, there are just 26 publicly accessible hydrogen stations in California today—and California is the only state with retail pumps capable of delivering the 10,000 psi needed to properly fill the Clarity.

Each hydrogen fueling station has a price tag of nearly $1 million. There are 23 more hydrogen stations under construction in California that are expected to open by the end of the year. A dozen Air Liquide hydrogen stations will open in the Northeast this year —just in time for fuel-cell-favorable California ZEV mandate requirements that will soon extend to several of those states.

We can’t predict whether hydrogen vehicles will go down as a failed experiment or the start of a sea change. Provided you’re okay in the living laboratory, which is essentially the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas (plus a waypoint in between at Harris Ranch and an outpost near Lake Tahoe), the fuel-cell Clarity makes a viable second car—not just because Honda has subsidized it so heavily but because it’s pleasant to drive. Perhaps most compelling of all, though, is the sheer science of it.

Specifications >

VEHICLE TYPE: front-motor, front-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door sedan

LEASE PRICE: $369/month with a $2868 down payment

MOTOR TYPE: permanent-magnet synchronous AC, 174 hp, 221 lb-ft; 1.7-kWh lithium-ion battery pack

FUEL-CELL TYPE: proton-exchange membrane, 103 kW

TRANSMISSION: 1-speed direct drive

DIMENSIONS:
Wheelbase: 108.3 in
Length: 192.7 in
Width: 73.9 in Height: 58.2 in
Passenger volume: 102 cu ft
Trunk volume: 12 cu ft
Curb weight (C/D est): 4150 lb

PERFORMANCE (C/D EST):
Zero to 60 mph: 8.3 sec
Zero to 100 mph: 27.0 sec
Standing ¼-mile: 16.5 sec
Top speed: 105 mph

FUEL ECONOMY:
EPA combined/city/highway driving: 67/68/66 MPGe