Honda helps out with hydrogen

Dull as it may seem, “infrastructure” is the buzzword when it comes to making alternative fuel cars more commonplace on our roads. With this in mind, Honda has come to the rescue - of the good people of Swindon at least - and made it easier for motorists in Honda’s UK hometown to fuel up hydrogen-powered cars.

Britain’s first open access hydrogen vehicle refuelling station opened up this week in Swindon as a joint venture between Honda, BOC Gases and Forward Swindon, an economic development company. The good news is that anyone with a hydrogen-powered car can fill up here with pumps at both 350 bar and 700 bar, the two standard filling pressures used by most automakers.

The refuelling station is in the grounds of Honda UK, a major manufacturing plant for the Japanese automaker, and while anyone can fill any hydrogen car there, there are hopes this will encourage more people behind the wheel of the Honda FCX Clarity.

Located at the halfway mark between Swansea and London along the M4, Honda hopes to send out a message that smartly located hydrogen refuelling stations are essential to get more cleaner, greener cars on the road.

The station can fill vehicles back to back from a bank of hydrogen cylinders so nobody needs to wait around for more hydrogen to be generated. It looks much the same as a traditional garage and, unlike the recharging of an electric car, it takes about the same time to fill up a hydrogen car as it does to pump petrol or diesel. The Honda FCX Clarity can be filled up in less than five minutes.

Now the companies involved in this project are putting a challenge to the UK government to make life easier for drivers of hydrogen cars. Mike Huggon, Managing Director of BOC in the UK and Ireland, said: “We can provide the tools but the Government has to create the policy framework in which we can build the low carbon infrastructure of tomorrow.”



Life's a gas with Honda's hydrogen!


By Georgia Lewis

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