Honda Motor Co. President Takeo Fukui said prices have to fall further for fuel-cell cars to reach the mass market, even as the Japanese car maker unveiled the latest generation of fuel-cell vehicle. Fuel-cell cars are considered the most promising pollution-free vehicles, as they are powered through a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen, and emit only water as a byproduct. But low-emission cars such as gasoline-electric hybrids and diesel vehicles are more popular now. A lack of hydrogen service stations, among other factors, is limiting demand for the cars, and therefore carmakers can't mass produce them, keeping production costs high. Honda said Monday that it will begin leasing the third generation of a fuel-cell model called FCX Clarity in the US in July. The company plans to lease the new zero-emission car in Japan this autumn. Fukui said the new fuel-cell car costs tens of millions of yen, significantly less than the several hundred million yen it cost to make previous models. The price would need to fall to below 10 million yen, or about $92,000, for fuel-cell cars to be a mass-market product, he said. “I think it wouldn't take 10 years” for his company to slash the price of its fuel-cell car to this level, he said. To cut the price, the company especially needs to reduce the use of expensive precious metals and address the costliness of the hydrogen fuel tank, he said. Honda, Japan's second-biggest carmaker by sales volume, aims for combined lease sales of 200 vehicles of the latest fuel-cell model for the US and Japan within three years. The lease fee is $600 a month in the US. The company hasn't disclosed the fee in Japan. Honda, which obtained the world's first certification for fuel-cell cars in the US in 2002, is a leading maker of such vehicles and has been competing in the development of the advanced car with rivals such as Toyota Motor Corp. and General Motors Corp.
