Car Finance / Fuel Cell Future
When I exited the hotel with Steve to drive the Honda FCX, I headed straight for the vehicle that was on display with the other fuel cell cars just outside the entrance of the Renaissance Hotel in Hollywood.
"Wait a second," Steve called to me and I turned to see him fishing the valet claim check out of his pocket. He handed it to the parking attendant, who retrieved the key from the board and wandered off.
"You valet parked it?" I asked incredulously, finding it amazing that Steve Ellis, manager of sales and marketing for American Honda's alternative fuel vehicles, handed over the keys of a multimillion-dollar, hand-built, prototype car to a hotel parking attendant.
"Why not? It wasn't like there was much choice," he said. It was true. Hotels in the city are famous for making self-parking difficult.
But what was even more startling than handing over the keys of a multimillion-dollar car was that there were no instructions that came along with operating it. I was amazed, considering that the Honda FCX does not run on gasoline (it runs on pressurized hydrogen) and it is powered not by an internal combustion engine, but by a fuel cell and an electric motor.
As if to demonstrate my point, the attendant pulled the FCX up a moment later and held open the driver door for me. I looked at him carefully, trying to discern if he had any clue what he was driving. His brown eyes met my gaze warmly and he smiled and said, "It's running, ma'am." Good thing he mentioned that, because this car doesn't make any noise, except for the occasional fan turning off and on.
The hotel where Steve had valet parked the car was the site of the 15th Annual U.S. Hydrogen Conference, and I was there to learn everything I could about the future of the automobile. That included meeting Steve for a drive through the Hollywood Hills, where I would have the opportunity to put the Honda FCX through its paces. Since I was familiar with the area, I planned a route that was a combination of highway, city streets and canyon roads — about 40 miles in all.
In a nutshell, the experience was remarkably unremarkable. In fact, it was similar to driving any one of a multitude of gasoline-powered, internal combustion-engined cars on the market today. This was true not just for the Honda FCX, but for my driving experiences in the Toyota FCHV and General Motors' HydroGen3, two other fuel cell vehicles.
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