Faith in the long-term future of the internal combustion engine is hard to come by at the headquarters of most automakers. Sure, for the immediate future we're all still going to be driving around in cars, trucks and SUVs powered by engines burning some sort of petroleum product. But over the horizon lies the fuel cell — a device that generates direct current (DC) electricity through electrochemical conversion without generating any pollution. Unless you've got tenure in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, you probably can't build a working fuel cell at home, and even explaining how they work takes more space than is available here (though we gave it our best shot in BMW's Paradigm Shift), but GM, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, Hyundai, BMW, Toyota, Volkswagen, Nissan and Honda all see a fuel cell-powered future coming.

Now Honda has gone and let us drive its hydrogen fuel cell-powered FCX on actual Southern California roads and freeways. While that fact alone makes it seem as if the fuel cell revolution is imminent, every mile in the FCX makes the challenges ahead for the technology more obvious — and more daunting.

Honda makes about 400,000 Accords for sale in the U.S. every year, and the company will probably only make — by hand — a total of 40 FCXs over the next couple of years. But for a car that's being built in a quantity only 1/10,000th of that which Honda is capable, the FCX is well finished. Inside, the plastic parts all fit together properly and feature a fine texture, the carpeting is neatly trimmed and there's no sign of dangling electrical tape or spit wad engineering.

The exterior uses the same body panels as Honda's departed (and barely remembered) electric car — the EV-Plus — with the addition of a new grille and bumper area to feed air to the powertrain's radiators. Considering its awkward proportions, there's no way the FCX could ever be described as pretty, but it's somehow instantly recognizable as a Honda and, again, well crafted throughout.

Those exterior dimensions are pretty agonizingly awkward. At 164.0 inches in overall length (10.7 inches shorter than a Civic coupe), the FCX is a very short machine. But it's also tall and wide (2.6 inches wider and a lofty 9.7 inches taller than that same Civic) and rides on a relatively long 99.3-inch wheelbase. It looks like a metallic baby shoe sitting atop a roller skate — as worn by an elephant.

Dinky as the FCX looks, it weighs in at a hefty 3,713 pounds. That's a startling 1,309 pounds more than a Civic coupe and 405 pounds more than a base Chevy Impala. This is a densely packed automobile with heavy power and drivetrain equipment packed all along its length.

The front-drive FCX's heft starts under its nose where there's a large radiator in the center for the fuel cell system and another, smaller radiator for the DC electric motor that actually moves the car. Sitting behind the radiators and under a computerized power control unit, the motor feeds a two-stage reduction transmission (gearing isn't necessary with the consistent torque output of an electric engine). Then under the cockpit is a compartment packed with the Ballard fuel cell stack, a cooling pump, humidifier and system computer. The hydrogen fuel is stored (at 5,000 psi!) in two large tanks between the rear wheels. Each of those tanks consists of an aluminum bottle wrapped in carbon fiber and, finally, encased in fiberglass to both withstand the pressure inside it and resist the possibility of a puncture during a collision.