Honda to take until 2018 to produce fuel cell cars

Honda Motor Co. doesn't believe it will be able to make fuel-cell vehicles in large scale production until 2018, Honda President Takeo Fukui said in a recent interview with Japan's Kyodo News.

"In 2008, we will begin lease sales of a new fuel-cell car," Fukui said at the automaker's head office in Tokyo. "By evolving a next model based on this, I think the level of technology will become very close to that of mass-produced ordinary vehicles within 10 years or so."

Honda, Japan's third-largest automaker, has been showing the FCX concept vehicle - a futuristic sedan powered by a hydrogen fuel cell - and plans to make it available for lease sales in 2008 in Japan and the United States. But the car is expected to be extraordinarily expensive.

Fukui said he believes fuel-cell car development will be very advanced by 2018. "It will become a real possibility to a large degree," Fukui said.

Fukui said he is confident "there will be many customers who want to buy" a Honda fuel-cell car if it goes on sale for 10 million yen (about $84,000 USD). Currently, the cost to make a Honda FCX is estimated at 10 to 20 times that.

Fukui said Honda is trying hard to develop a reliable fuel-cell car with an aim to make it as "a car of the future."