When will customers be able to buy them in Honda dealerships?
It’s the most promising technology for future cars’ power trains. Performance-wise, even today, they’re better than conventional cars. The starting torque is very high and smoother. But we don’t know when it will be practical to sell them in dealerships. That’s still a decade or two away. We’ll have to solve several technical challenges before then. Q: Such as? A: Such as reducing the amount of catalysts — mainly platinum — needed to generate electricity from hydrogen and oxygen. We need a lighter and more compact electric-generation unit. It’s now composed of a stack of 400 separate plates. That part is also a challenge for quality control because the worst single plate of the 400 determines the performance of the whole system. Another interesting problem: Because the byproduct is pure water, and it’s everywhere around the 400 plates, the stack will freeze in cold weather. We could have a heater, but that requires a battery and some expenditure of energy. Q: What about refueling the
