Honda Seeks Mass-Market Fuel-Cell Car by 2020

A Honda Motor Co. executive said Tuesday that the Japanese auto maker hopes to launch a reasonably priced fuel-cell car by 2020.

Visitors look at a Honda FCX Clarity displayed at an expo in Tokyo on Feb. 27.

While that may sound a long way off, that’s actually an ambitious goal given the extremely high R&D costs associated with developing a zero-emission technology that is still nowhere near the price range of the average consumer.

“We have to lower our costs so it makes business sense to try to reach a mass market by 2020,” said Koichi Fukuo, managing officer in charge of Honda’s drive trains, in a meeting with reporters.

The price “will have to be reduced to several million yen and the upper limits (of the prices) would have to be similar to those of the premium grade vehicles in each segment,” Mr. Fukuo added.

The ambitious goal may not even be as new as it seems. While Mr. Fukuo was expressing the goal in the context of Honda’s joint development pact with General Motors Co. announced two weeks ago, a Honda engineer publicly made a similar comment eight years ago.

Yozo Kami, Honda R&D Co.’s executive chief engineer, said in 2005 that the price range of any future fuel-cell car would have to be lowered to between Y3 million and Y4 million by about 2020, citing the price range of a Honda Accord sedan. “Otherwise, the fuel-cell vehicle will disappear,” he noted.

Fuel-cell cars are powered by electricity generated through a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen. As they generate no toxic exhaust gases, they are seen as highly promising zero-emission vehicles.

But the prohibitive costs of building them – about Y100 million ($1 million) a decade ago and still more than Y10 million now – and the lack of a network of hydrogen stations remain major obstacles hampering their widespread use.

Also, the fact the mass-marketing of the vehicles is still being thought of in terms of years from now rather than the present highlights how difficult it has been to commercialize this type of green car despite the fact it has few technological issues in terms of vehicle performance.

To help reduce costs, Honda is teaming up with GM as it hopes to achieve economies of scale. The U.S. auto giant has advanced know-how in analyzing chemical reactions that will be a key part of the technology used in fuel-cell cars. All the same, the two car makers will not aggressively look for other car makers to join their team and reduce costs further, Mr. Fukuo said.

“Only the two of us will work together for the time being,” he said.