The official price of the 2016 Honda Clarity Fuel Cell Sedan is out, and it puts the car up with the ranks of the Tesla Model S. The car’s starting price is estimated to be $60,000.
Honda 2016 Honda Clarity Shipping Out by the End 2016
The car maker will have leasing options from $500 a month, and this is the car that could put Honda right on par with its fuel cell competitors. This pricing does not include taxes or state or federal rebates.
Tesla Has No Interest in Hydrogen Fuel Cell Cars
Other competing cars include the Toyota Mirai sedan, announced in the fall of last year. The car is set to cost about $58,000, and the Hyundai fuel cell version of the Tucson car can be leased for $499 per month with a $3,000 down payment. Ford, Daimler, Renault and Nissan are all developing fuel cell cars, the last three car makers making them jointly. Tesla is not quite interested in this market, with Elon Musk calling the cars ‘mind-bogglingly stupid’, but it’s
General Motors partnered up with Honda, and both car makers own more hydrogen fuel cell technology patents than every other car maker combined. They hope to develop new ways to apply hydrogen fuel cell technology though no intentions of making a car have been announced.
Hydrogen fuel cell cars have a range of 300 miles and over, and make only water vapor as an emission. This makes them very attractive, especially for markets in countries that want to peak or lower their emissions. The cars also refuel in three to five minutes, making them extremely efficient and green.
Honda Makes the Market More Attractive
The thing about hydrogen fuel cell cars is just that there aren’t enough of them. Southern California, for example, has the largest fuel cell filling station network, but only a handful of these are open to the public. Honda is hoping to change that.
Just recently, the car maker was awarded the 2016 Green SUV Award by the Green Car Journal. The wonderful thing about this award is that it was given to a regular fuel car, but it has a whopping 35 miles per gallon fuel consumption. It is unmatched in this respect. With this in mind, there’s probably no better car maker to tackle the hydrogen fuel cell market and bring as many of these cars as possible to the market.
