Honda FCX Clarity wins 2009 World Green Car
April 14, 2009 by Matt Brogan
Recognising Honda’s commitment to environmental leadership in the area of alternative fuels and hydrogen-powered fuel cell technology, the Honda FCX Clarity was today declared the 2009 World Green Car.
At a press conference hosted by the New York International Auto Show and Mobil 1 at the Jacob Javits Centre in, New York, the Honda FCX Clarity was named the 2009 World Green Car. The FCX Clarity was chosen from an initial entry list of 22 contenders nominated by 59 World Car jurors from 25 countries worldwide.
“The FCX Clarity is a symbol of the progress we have made with fuel cell vehicles and our commitment to developing vehicles that promote renewable energy supplies and zero-emissions transportation,” said Steve Center, vice president, national Marketing Operations for American Honda.
The FCX Clarity, a hydrogen fuel cell-powered sedan, is propelled by an electric motor that runs on electricity generated by an on-board fuel cell stack. The vehicle’s only emission is water, and its fuel efficiency is up to three times that of a modern petrol-powered car and twice that of a petrol-powered hybrid vehicle.
The World Green Car awards were inaugurated in 2003, and officially launched in January 2004, to reflect the reality of the global marketplace, as well as to recognise and reward automotive excellence on an international scale.
The awards are administered by a non-profit association, under the guidance of a Steering Committee of pre-eminent automotive journalists from Asia, Europe, and North America. There is no affiliation with, nor are the awards in any way influenced by any publication, auto show, automaker, or other commercial enterprise.
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Well of course it won! If any thing else had it would have been down to pay offs or dreadfully uneducated panelists. Honda need to fund hydrogen fill up stations in more places and get this technology out there! It’s vital to the future of cars that hybrids be ignored (car companies, we are still going to run out of oil at some point) and hydrogen be devolped.
Hey is that Jamie Lee Curtis standing next to that barge of a car??
World car of the year for a vehicle you can only get in 1 or 2 countries…
perhaps it should be “southern californian” green car of the year. only 3 dealers can lease you a car for 3 years at $600pm. smells like an EV-1. and there will only be 200 of them too.
Shouldn’t this award go to mass produced, commercialy viable vehicles. Not prototype’s released to select members of the public for testing. This car is “symbolic” of the wasted energy used by Honda in search of an environmentaly friendly vehicle. Hydrogen is too expensive, and going no where no matter what Top Gear has to say.
I’m sure if it was a carppy VW we wouldn’t see all these negative comments!
Hummerbug Says:
April 14th, 2009 at 3:56 pm Hey is that Jamie Lee Curtis standing next to that barge of a car??
Yeah, not as good as her ‘Trading Places’ movie parts, mmm
Nick, hydrogen WILL be the way forward. What Top Gear said was only information that was already pretty well known. The only major problem at the moment is getting refilling stations set up.
Obviously without the cars around it’s going to be hard to get the stations set up, and without the stations there’s no point in buying the cars. But once that problem is sorted (which it will be, whether completely privately or more likely, with government support) it’s simply a matter of refining the technology and getting them on sale.
And I think any praise put on hydrogen fueled cars is a good thing. Get peoples attention off hybrids for two seconds.
SO true joe, if we can just get peoples attention of those blasted hybrids then maybe companies will reaact and start to develop hydrogen. Cars such as the rius and insight stikr discord within me. i realyy hate them!!!!!!!!!
Nick’s got it wrong, Joe’s got it right.
It’s just a bit of a vicious circle right now. No cars because there’s nowhere to fill them up, nowhere to fill up because there’s no cars.
Hydrogen will be the way forward. As far as I know, it’s sustainable, it gives us scope to have alternatively fueled super cars as impressive as the ones we have now within a small amount of time and there is no reason to think that hydrogen will be expensive. It just needs to get started. Just like iPods. I think I payed about 350 pounds for my first iPod because it was new technology but the other week I bought a new one for half that price with about twenty times the memory of my first one.
Hydrogen won’t be cheap at the beginning, just like iPods weren’t, but after a while they’ll be as cheap and common as anything else. You’ve just got to give them a chance and not keep trying to find things wrong with them. Get with the times.
Well said Alex, took the words right out of my mouth.
When governments start investing in hydrogen infrastructure then you’ll see more car companies develop this technology.
At the moment Honda, Mazda and BMW seem to be the only ones serious about it.
“At the moment Honda, Mazda and BMW seem to be the only ones serious about it.”
http://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/
There’s plenty of players there, infact i’d say BMW & Mazda who are foolishly chasing Hydrogen via combustion technology are least likely to ever have a production car.
“I think I payed about 350 pounds for my first iPod because it was new technology”
No, because it was made by Apple. But your point is very true :)
My 2nd question is, Jamie is standing at a pump station. So what is the published price for Hydrogen as of today? My first question was does she still look good naked?
Nice, especially like the two-dimensional wheels
World Green Car Awards press conference hosted by Mobil 1? WTF?
Brilliant car, the only possible winner.