Honda's R&D Chief Says Automaker Prefers Fuel Cells to Batteries for EVs

Honda's R&D Chief Says Automaker Prefers Fuel Cells to Batteries for EVs

We opined last week that Honda was skipping at least the initial heat of the battery electric vehicle race to concentrate on its hybrid and fuel-cell electric programs.

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Honda believes fuel-cell electric cars such as its FCX Clarity will be marketable before battery-electric vehicles can make the grade.

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Now comes word, via Bloomberg News, that the automaker also is bowing out of the plug-in hybrid contest.

Batteries just aren't advanced enough to make rechargeable gasoline-electric vehicles sensible replacements for gasoline-only cars, Honda research chief Masaaki Kato said in a recent interview with the business news service.

"For battery-powered vehicles to become more widespread, more popular in the market, we feel battery technology needs to advance further,'' Kato said. "We just don't see it providing the type of driving performance you get with a gasoline-powered vehicle.''

Honda's reticence flys in the face of aggressive moves by General Motors Corp, with its promised Volt plug-in sedan, due in fleets in small numbers toward the end of next year and scheduled for mass production at the end of 2010, and Toyota Motor Corp., which is developing a plug-in Prius hybrid for fleet use and has scheduled a late 2009 introduction (no word on when or if the car will be made available in the retail market).

Toyota and Nissan also are preparing small city-car EVs using rechargeable batteries.

The plug-ins rely on advanced lithium-ion batteries, which hold significantly more energy than the nickel-metal hydride batteries used in conventional, non-rechargeable hybrids and thus are able to provide more all-electric range without adding substantial weight to the vehicle.

GM says its Volt should be able to travel 40 miles with lithium-ion battery pack charged from the commercial grid before an onboard gasoline generator would kick in to keep the batteries charged.

But Kato told Bloomberg that Honda engineers don't believe lithium-ion batteries will satisfy most consumers because of their high cost and limited range compared to gasoline engines.

In Japan, he said, battery developers are still trying to meet a government goal of boosting energy storage capacity by seven times while slashing battery costs to just 2.5 percent of current costs.

"That gives you a pretty clear example of what type of gap we're facing relative to a gasoline vehicle,'' Kato said. "At this point, I'd say it's impossible to imagine a date at which such a breakthrough could occur.''

He said Honda believes it will be easier, less costly and quicker to perfect the fuel-cell electric vehicle, such as the FCX Clarity that it is leasing in small numbers to select consumers in Southern California and Japan.

The car uses compressed hydrogen gas that is mixed with oxygen in the onboard fuel-cell stack to produce the electricity that powers the drive motor. It has a range of 280 miles on a 4-kilogram tank of hydrogen, equivalent to about 70 miles per gallon in a gasoline-fueled car.

One big roadblock to successful introduction of fuel-cell vehicles is lack of a nationwide hydrogen fueling system -- but the battery-electric vehicle faces a similar obstacle.

While batteries can be recharged at home or at public charging stations, most such systems take several hours to replenish the power.

A national system of fast-charging stations that could let people "refill'' their EV batteries in 15 minutes or less is going to be necessary before most people will consider battery-electric vehicles to be all-purpose vehicles that can replace the gas cars in their garages.

John O'Dell, Senior Editor

John O'Dell:  is an AutoObserver Senior Editor. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter.