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American Honda said it will begin leasing the Clarity hydrogen fuel cell sedan for under $500 per month later this year in select California markets.
When Honda offers the car for retail sale, sometime after leasing begins, it will have a base price of “around” $60,000, John Mendel, executive vice president of American Honda said at the Washington auto show today.
The Clarity will take on the Toyota Mirai and and Hyundai Tucson fuel cell vehicles in select California markets that have hydrogen filling stations, Mendel said.
The Clarity’s sticker price and estimated lease offer puts it roughly in line with the Mirai, which starts a little lower at around $57,300 including destination or for a $499 monthly lease payment. The Hyundai Tuscon fuel cell is also offered for a $499 per month lease.
The state’s nascent infrastructure of hydrogen pumps -- only five public stations are currently operational in California -- is a key hurdle for the first wave of hydrogen fuel cell cars being offered for retail sale in part to meet California requirements to sell zero emission vehicles like fuel cells and battery-electric vehicles in increasing volumes through 2025.
Mendel said 12 stations will be open by the end of the year, part of around 100 that come on line in the next few years.
“It's definitely ramping up,” Mendel told reporters at the Washington auto show. “It’s been a slow ramp-up versus the launch of the first Clarity but it’s accelerating at a pretty good pace.”
Honda Motor Co., seeking to reassert itself as a dominant player in the world of green cars, plans to broaden the Clarity nameplate to two more alternative-fuel vehicles.
The Clarity hydrogen fuel-cell hatchback set to go on sale late this year will be followed by an all-electric Clarity next year. A third model -- a Clarity plug-in hybrid -- will be launched later in 2017, Honda said Thursday.
The move follows Hyundai’s decision to pack a trio of powertrain options in the new Ioniq lineup and is similar to Toyota’s decision to market several hybrid and plug-in hybrids under the Prius nameplate.
The three Clarity models will all share the same front-wheel-drive platform and five-seat, hatchback layout. Styling between the versions will vary slightly.
“This shared platform strategy will enable Honda to more efficiently respond to infrastructure and market developments, provide customers nationwide with an ultra-low carbon vehicle that meets their lifestyle needs and take us toward higher volume sales of advanced alt-fuel vehicles,” John Mendel, executive vice president of American Honda, said in a statement.
Honda says it was able to package three different powertrains in the same body because the new compact fuel cell and powertrain is the size of a traditional V-6 engine and now fits under the hood of the car.
Honda expects the Clarity plug-in hybrid to become the volume seller among the three models.
"Plug-ins like the Clarity are going to play an increasingly central role in our strategy going forward, and globally we’re committed to offering a plug-in variant on our major core models in the future," Mendel said.
Honda has refreshed and updated the Accord Hybrid for the 2017 model year. The car uses a new two-motor hybrid system and a 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine for 212 total horsepower, up from 196 horsepower.
The car is also more efficient, garnering EPA ratings of 49 mpg in the city, 47 mpg on the highway and 48 mpg combined. Honda notes that those figures are using the EPA’s more stringent 2017 test cycle, which puts it at the top of a hybrid class that includes the Toyota Camry, Ford Fusion, Chevy Malibu and Hyundai Sonata.
A smaller battery pack allowed Honda to increase trunk space to 13.5 cubic ft., up from 12.7 cu-ft.
Honda is bullish enough about the car’s prospects to predict that it would more than double its previous annual sales record of nearly 14,000 units in the U.S. It is set to go on sale later this spring.
The renewed focus by Honda on green-energy vehicles is the first step toward the automaker’s goal of electrifying two-thirds of its vehicles globally around 2030.
Though Honda was the first automaker to introduce a hybrid in the U.S. market in 1999, it has failed to establish any kind of foothold in green vehicles. The brand accounts for just one percent of all EV, hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicle sales in the U.S. so far this year, according to Edmunds.com.
LOS ANGELES -- In a surprise twist that will challenge Honda's carefully cultivated reputation as a leader in green vehicles, the Clarity all-electric model debuting this spring will have only about 80 miles of range on a single charge, Automotive News has learned.That figure puts the Honda well behind the Chevrolet Bolt's 238-mile range and nearly every other battery-electric vehicle on the market. And it leaves Honda to tackle a tough problem: how to build a cutting-edge brand image around its Clarity line of electrified vehicles with a battery EV whose range barely tops that of a Nissan Leaf circa 2010.The shortfall is not a failure of its engineering, Honda says, but the unavoidable result of its choices.
The automaker defined two parameters that were nonnegotiable: the physical size of the Clarity platform -- which the EV shares with the Clarity plug-in hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell models -- and the cost of the battery-electric version, which is expected to start around $35,000 before any tax credits or incentives (pricing hasn't been announced).With those hard points, Honda didn't leave itself any leeway to fit a longer-range battery, which would have been heavier and costlier.
More at the link.
An interesting strategy, but one that isn't likely to work.
While I can understand the need for a larger EV w/o an exorbitant price-tag, an 80 mile range simply isn't enough (needs to be at least 120) and I doubt the Clarity EV offers that much more interior space than Ioniq and esp. the Niro.
I don't think Honda is into EV much. They seem to believe in hydrogen fuel cell instead. It's almost like they built the EV just for California or something. It's interesting to note that the EV range is 80 miles while the fuel cell version is 366 miles.
I'm curious... if say in the future we start turning away from gas powered vehicles and move on to hydrogen, would today's smog filled cities turn into neverending rain cities?
If the Model 3 ships in a timely manner, Hydrogen is DOA. The thing is, no one is going to have a ton of traction with electric in this administration.
The issue has gone from emissions to import taxes under Trump. Companies like VAG properties and GM are in some trouble if the import tax tacks another 20% on their vehicles.
Honda Clarity Plug In hybrid sales starts at $33k. 47 mile on charge. Accord size interior. 7500 tax credit atleast until the end of year.
I wont be surpized this tech in Acura.
The Clarity is also a lot nicer inside than the Mirai. It seats five comfortably to the Mirai’s four. Most controls and the touchscreen will be familiar to Honda owners, but the décor is attractive and rich enough to pull Acura duty—which isn’t much of a stretch considering the Clarity costs $59,365 before government incentives. And the refinement goes beyond the interior. A solid structure and supple suspension give the Clarity a luxury-car feel that the Mirai can’t touch. Driving the Clarity after the Mirai is like getting into a Lexus ES350 after a Toyota Corolla.
Honda Clarity Plug In hybrid price (sic) starts at $33k. 47 mile on charge. Accord size interior. $7500 (sic) tax credit at least until the end of year.
I wouldn't be surprised (sic) if this tech trickles down to Acura.
This was too funny not to post and it was interesting to read some of the predictions form the past decade in this thread:
The Honda Clarity is far from the most attractive vehicle on the market, so the owner of the following example has tried to give the car some added Italian flair.
The Clarity looks unlike anything else on the road. On the other hand, it’s as far removed from a Maserati as we can imagine, and slapping a Maserati badge onto the tailgate fools absolutely no one.
Despite that, the image shared on Reddit reveals that the Clarity’s owner didn’t just stop with the Maserati badge. In fact, the “green” Honda is also rocking a set of four miniature exhaust pipes affixed to the rear bumper. It makes for a very strange look, and one that’s at odds with the car’s overall design.
One other thing we’ve noticed about the car is that it has an i-VTEC badge on the tailgate. The Clarity PHEV does feature an i-VTEC engine but it doesn’t have an i-VTEC badge like this, indicating that the owner decided to fit this badge. A small piece of red has also been added to the sharkfin antenna on the roof.
Honda's only fuel-cell vehicle and plug-in hybrid vehicle is going away this year. A company representative confirmed the Honda Clarity would be ending production this August.
The representative didn't specifically say why the Clarity in all its forms is being discontinued, but sales seem likely. Only 551 were sold in all of 2020, and 805 in 2019. That was about half of Insight sales last year, and the only slower selling Honda still in production was the Acura NSX.
Honda's representative did note that there will be enough Clarity Fuel Cell models available for lessees into 2022, and of course owners and lessees will have support for their vehicles for the foreseeable future.
The rep also emphasized that Honda is still focused on electric and fuel cell vehicles saying, "Honda has set a target to make 100% of our vehicles sales battery-electric (BEV) or fuel cell electric (FCEV) by 2040." She further noted that Honda has an electric car coming for 2024. Honda also struck a deal with GM to develop fuel-cell systems a few years ago. So while this is the end of the road for the Clarity, it certainly isn't the end of electrified or hydrogen Hondas.
01-22-2016, 07:58 AM
We have a Honda Clarity thread: https://acurazine.com/forums/automot...%2A%2A-378416/
