Fuel-cell vehicles arrive

Two big automakers—Honda and Toyota—began leasing the world’s first hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles on December 2. Honda delivered five of its compact, four-seater FCX fuel-cell vehicles to the city of Los Angeles and plans to lease about 30 of the vehicles over the next 2–3 years in Japan and the United States. Toyota began leasing two five-passenger mid-sized fuel-cell sport utility vehicles, called FCHVs, to the University of California—one to the Irvine campus and the other to Davis—at a price of $10,000 each, for a 30-month lease. The company plans to lease four more FCHVs to the University of California campuses in 2003, as part of its plan to establish a fuel-cell partnership in California that encompasses government, business, and academia. Toyota hopes the partnership will help solve numerous issues related to hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, such as improving fuel tank capacity, establishing an infrastructure for hydrogen refueling stations, and finding practical and economical ways of producing hydrogen.