Honda is working on a hydrogen car project of its own design

Honda is going to introduce its own car, powered by hydrogen fuel cells, next month . At the same time, the range of the car from Honda, as the developers promise, will be greater than that of Toyota's Mirai.

Honda will announce the price of its hydrogen car and the availability of new items on sale at the Tokyo Motor Show, which opens on October 30. It turns out that Honda will present its "hydrogen car" a year later than Toyota introduced its. Earlier, the company’s management had already announced that it would appear in the sale of a fuel cell electric car in March 2016.

It is still known that a car that does not yet have a name can drive about 700 kilometers on a single "charge" of hydrogen. The number of seats in the cabin is five. The power reserve of a Honda car is higher since the batteries are placed more rationally than in a Toyota car.

Now many car manufacturers are under constant pressure from the public and officials demanding reduction of harmful emissions from cars with an internal combustion engine. This has become especially relevant now, after the leadership of Volkswagen AG recognized the use of software to lower emissions when passing the company’s special tests.

Last year, Honda already announced ongoing work to create a car with fuel cells. But then the output of such a vehicle had to be postponed to improve its performance. The current array of fuel cells in Honda cars is 33% less than the previous version of the "hydrogen car".

By the way, at the beginning of this year, Toyota made an interesting move: the Japanese company opened its 5680 patents related to energy from fuel cells for everyone. This means that the technology provided can be used by anyone who wants, without paying royalties.

Toyota management believes that this will help to bring the release date of cars with fuel cells "to people." The company believes the discovery of patents will “accelerate research metabolism.” It may well be that this will work, and other manufacturers will begin their own research projects in this area, drawing on the experience and knowledge provided by Toyota. In this case, the ecosystem of units and assemblies for fuel cell vehicles will be deployed in a matter of years.

Toyota understands that the transition to "hydrogen" cars is a matter of many years, even decades. At the same time, the company does not doubt the correctness of such a transition.