Motoring worlds

The Honda FCV Clarity is the first fuel cell vehicle I’ve been around and I can’t seem to understand what the fuss is all about. I’m to be driven around a short course before taking the wheel myself a few minutes later, but from whatever I’ve seen of the car in action at Honda’s R&D headquarters in Tochigi, Japan, it doesn’t seem like a science experiment on wheels. Even when I get inside, I find that the doors shut with a nice thud, the rear seat has space for three (a big deal, as I learn later) and though the seating position on the rear bench is a bit knees-up, it’s quite a comfortable place to be. It’s so, for a lack of a better word, normal; the fact that the Clarity feels like this actually means a job well done by the team responsible for the car. Feedback from FCX Clarity (predecessor to the FCV Clarity) leasers was for a car that was as practical as a like-sized petrol-powered sedan. Honda has been working on fuel cell vehicles for over two decades and the FCV Cl...