Honda's 2025 Plug In CR-V For America Isn't What You Think... It's a Hydrogen Fuel Cell Plug In 

Looking for the H2 opinions video? It's here now: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-JeIFuQM0rOE.html

Great timing, launching just after Shell closes most of its Hydrogen fueling stations in California.

I just plug it into my home hydrogen port and away we go.

This is one of the dumbest things Honda has done lately. Why not put money into a bigger battery plug in like Toyota rav4 prime.

I wish Honda wouldn't be so exclusive with their PHEV's and just give us a CRV PHEV and put a hybrid system in the darn Pilot/Ridgeline.

That front end looks exactly like my 19 Honda Insight.

Wish it was a "regular" plug-in hybrid. The Clarity was basically perfect, if only they hadn't discontinued it.

Oh man i got so excited when i read your title only to then see the tagline about hydrogen. My hopes are foiled again!

I just...don't know why they are spending time and resources on something like this. As they said in Mean Girls, "Stop trying to make fetch happen".

Oh GAWD! Please make it stop! Please stop focusing energy on products we will not see for another 10-15 years. Can we get a Hybrid Pilot, Odyssey, Ridgeline, or a Hybrid MDX, RDX. It can even be a Mild Hybrid, 48 volt version like the Mazda CX90/70. I would love to see Honda/Acura get more relavant tech on their big vehicles.

I’m furious that Honda keeps f%king around with HFCV when PHEV is so many thousands of times more convenient for everyone on Earth. It’s like they aren’t even trying.

What a waste of time, give us the gas PHEV CR-V

I wish that front end was on the gas-hybrid.

So I’m lucky because in the Palm Springs region we have a Hydrogen pumping station that has been in operation for over 20 years. Some of our public bus are run exclusively on Hydrogen, nick named Water Buses.

In SoCal, it looks like there are almost as many hydrogen stations as Superchargers

I totally agree with you that this technology should have been offered on the Acura because Honda is not offering supercruise unfortunately

It sounds/looks like they made a ton of packaging compromises to cram the Fuel Cell tech into a CR-V, but if they used a regular combustion engine as a range extender, it would actually be a pretty dang practical CR-V with few compromises and... why the heck don't they just do that?

Agree that the luxury brands should be badging these FCEV cars. With a plug-in, that definitely takes some of pain out of the infrastructure issues. Covers most daily commutes and errands.

Should’ve gone with a PHEV the way the Clarity was. It took me about 2 years to accept, but as a 5-yr owner of one, it’s honestly been the most sensible Swiss Army knife for daily commuting & some road tripping (sans snowy weather). Battery range is approx 35mi, which is down from its original 45mi; but considering how most PHEVs come with a max EV range of 30, Honda providing a large battery in the first place was their best choice.

Honda was investing into hydrogen tech, on manufacturing side as well. RAV4 Prime is stretched in the bottom part to fit the battery. This is a good solution that could have been implemented by Honda as well.

The tech is cool but this thing is DOA. I'm all for them experimenting but it's a huge missed opportunity considering how thirsty the market is for a PHEV CR-V that runs on gas. I get that this isn't a mass market car and more of a rolling test bed, but that cargo area is a great analogy for the current state of hydrogen FCVs...compromised.

FC + PHEV is the only way to make H2 work on the passenger market given the non-existent refueling network. But this stuffed packaging is showing much work is needed before becoming viable. Full sized SUV/pick-ups maybe?

Seeing at Toyota is paying people to drive a Mirai, actually pay them, just why? If hydrogen was going to be an option it needed to be viable 10+ years ago.

Almost everyone in the comments section is angry because Honda is doing what Honda wants. Absolutely hilarious. Please by all means keep getting angry. I'm glad Honda is experimenting and researching, period. The compromises are a deal breaker but this is a science project essentially. It's fine the way it is because it means Honda isn't resting on their laurels and turning into Isuzu or Mitsubishi. The ICE-only people got just as angry when hybrids and PHEV's were being developed years ago so all this really means is that stupidity is and will always be infinite no matter if you're pro-BEV/PHEV/hybrid or pro-ICE. Just because everyone is going BEV or PHEV doesn't mean hydrogen is over. In the same way even though we have Apple iOS and Android, there's plenty of needs for applications that Apple and Google do not develop on their own. Choice and variety are the luxuries we can afford because R&D is never-ending.

Neat, how about a regular plug-in hybrid I can just buy in Denver Colorado.

WTH Honda? Are you high? Nobody wants this! I live in CA and this isn’t even viable for us. What a waste. Just give us the PHEV you already make.

I’m so happy they strategically introduced hydrogen fuel cell into this concept. Hydrogen fuel cell burns cleaner and there’s more of it than gas.

Hydrogen cost is double than gasoline cost. That’s why honda offered plug in option. But the battery range still not enough for average American.(40 -50 miles range ). Most of the fell cells vehicles offered 15000 dollars fuel credits for 3 years. It’s making a lot of people feel great. Unfortunately, most of them feel pain when they need to pay for their own money after 3 years. Toyota offers fuel cash to help customers to buy used Mira(Toyota fuel cell vehicle). And Toyota dealers in Southern California offer 3 years old used fuel cell vehicles for $13000 to 15000 plus $15000 fuel cash credits to help buyers. It’s a good deal? The hydrogen still unable to store in room temperature. And most of the hydrogen is making from hydrogen factory. It took a lot of power to generate, storage and transport. Do you know how many next generation nuclear power plants will be built in china in next ten years. Because they are planned to use hydrogen fuel for their future transportation energy. It is not made sense for most of Americans. Because hydrogen fuel just for high population density cities (like Toyota, Beijing and New York) or the country without any own energy source( Japan or most of Europe countries). Fuel cell vehicles are less impacted for our planet than fossil fuel vehicles or electric vehicles.(most of the RU-vidr told you) But most of the people forget the most basic reason. Technology is helping humans to live easier, better, work smarter and improve our environment with less input. If I need to pay double for the fuel and vehicles and my return is working harder and longer times for same results, I will not do it. Because the new technology never improves my life. (Except real rich people or people loved to try new technology)

Cali’s H2 is running at $40-$45/kg. Extremely expansive $/mile, well beyond $0.5/mile

What a dead end waste of money 👎

Outrageous lunacy. I'm not even going to watch this whole thing I'm just here to comment that fuel cell cars are an idiotic waste of time. It's hard to believe Honda would actually produce a new fuel cell car in 2024. Here in California they are actually closing down hydrogen stations, they are exceedingly rare in the first place, and as bad as it is, apparently California is about the only place in the United States where there is any kind of network of stations at all. And as no doubt many others will comment it's vastly cheaper and simpler and better in every respect to produce a PHEV drivetrain or a straight EV. Wake the heck up Honda good grief!

Has the front end design of the new grand Highlander

I love it when there are alternative fuel options for new vehicles.

I’m glad Honda is making something that obviously people asked for!

Love my Clarity phev

Dont buy it not enough stations around price of hydrogen has skyrocketed and most hydrogen stations experiensing longer tech problems times. Shells just abandoned whole programm to build addtional stations.

Your channel is the most informative. You should have at least a 5M subscribers.

Sounds like this is a compliance car with GM joint venture

I live in California, and got to ask, WHO IN THE WORLD ASKED FOR THIS?

Waste of resources... Just make a regular PHEV CRV and sell it already...

My cousin was the GM lead on the hydrogen fuel cell joint venture with Honda. I think that particular project has come to an end and I saw an article about Honda wanting to use the tech in large trucks or lorries as we say in the UK.

Where is the link to the video that explains why Hydrogen is so incredibly inefficient compared to just putting the electricity directly into a battery?

I'm a complete newbie so help me understand a basic concept. When running off hydrogen power, is the hydrogen combusted in a piston engine? Or is hydrogen converted to electricity and it powers an electric motor? Thanks.

I had no problem starting up and driving in a few min with 2021 Mirai LXE. Mirai has interesting trick on cabin heating: you can turn off HVAC if you are driving at highway speed. With that I don't really see significant range drop even near freezing temperature. Clarity sees much bigger range drop and wondering how CR-V e:FCEV's range is affected in winter.

Bet its only sold in Cali smh

Why Hydrogen when all they need is regular PHEV for it to sell?

Alex, These advancements in drivetrain technology are happening so rapidly. How long do we have to wait for a drivetrain that runs on C02 and emits oxygen from the tailpipe? 🤔🦄🌳🌲🌴

Fascinating. Thank you for this. Good on Honda for maintaining the effort on HFC.

A Plug-in FCV makes more sense than a normal FCV because you can actually plug it in and use it most places. But if it had no fuel cell and a bigger battery you could actually get a useful amount of range in most places too.

Good god what a waste😂😂😂 good luck going on road trips with barely any stations

How quickly are hydrogen stations expanding?

This is a perfect example of why I have never owned a Honda. Just why bother?

Japan are still blindly following hydrogen fuel cell🤦‍♂️🤦🤦‍♀️

Don't like that honeycomb even if you don't live in a dusty environment

@Alex, DIdn't GM and Honda work together on this tech?

What's the point?

I don't know what Honda is waiting for - a lot of their other models in other world markets offer a hybrid version - HR-V, Civic. Offering a hybrid option for most, if not all of their lineup would make them a lot more competitive and a lot more desirable for a lot of people.

Why oh why? Are there really enough people to justify Honda’s investment into this wishful thinking?

The front end looks way better IMO

We have one hydrogen fueling station here. Over one hundred miles is the next closest one. 😂

Hydrogen is so expensive now not worth it. $35-37 per Kilogram

I would have totally least the FC EV if it was available in New Jersey, and a hydrogen refueling station was available near my commute.

Instead of this Franken fuel monster, why didn't they put all the beans into making a decent EV CRV ARGGGHHH😬 BTW, I love my CRV hybrid despite the mediocre highway economy.

“Just put it over there with the Geos and Saturns”

It’s very hard to get hydrogen in California,

Honda and it's Fuel cell, such an obsolete idea. It's very disappointing that Honda does this to US, vice versa, look at EU and UK. And any car that doesn't even have a decent design ratio space for its own branding emblem is just simply idiotic.

I don't know about the rest of y'all, but I want us to have more than one major energy source for our ground transportation in the future, rather than rely on one that is susceptible to anything

The issue I see is hydrogen fuel is just too darn expensive.. this vehicle wouldn't make sense for me unless the manufacturer wants to cover most of the fueling costs at a hydrogen station.

Looks kinda like a Toyota tbh. I dont hate it. But i also like the current CRV.

I see limited use for consumers. But, this could be used by government agencies and perhaps some companies could make this work.

The regular Hybrid front end looks way better!!!

imo hydrogen is pointless for passenger/non-commercial vehicles. its also way less efficient than just converting energy to movement than just pure electric. Why convert fossil fuel to hydrogen to electricity then use for movement when you can skip the hydrogen part and go straight from fossil fuel to electricity. Real Engineering did a great video on this

Honda is shooting themselves in the foot with this kind of crv, the hybrid crv and getting rid of a fun/performance accord. I won’t be surprised if the big v6 models go to 4cyl and/or hybrid

That Scares me driving with Low hanging fuel cells and all that Hydrogen. I know it’s probably safer than my gas Impala. I just can’t help but think how easy it is to damage that low hanging area beneath the car.

Comparing this to the Ford Escape PHEV, I feel the Ford is better in all aspects - 37 miles electric range from a smaller 11 KWH battery, 40mpg hybrid economy, range of 400+ miles electric + gas, and is also FWD... Am I missing something?

These Japanese manufacturers are lagging badly

Not enough Hydrogen filling stations to make this livable... Unless you like driving across town just to get fuel.

Hydrogen is costly. $30/KG. Every time you fill up, it cost $150.

It’s way too complicated. Bring back the gas and the turbo engines. They need a CrV with a 2.0 Turbo. That’s it.

This is going to fail spectacularly.

If they had made this a gas or even diesel PHEV it would have been a home run but, hydrogen? In 2024? Bold choice…

I feel like Hydrogen would have had its moment, if it weren't for rapid development of EV's. I can still see Hydrogen being a solution, but not for passenger vehicles anymore.

Can I just get the hybrid HR-V (er, ZR-V) that Europe gets instead? Please?

Honda has no strategy, what the heck are they doing and why are they throwing money at this?

I dunno man, seems like hydrogen makes more sense as an energy storage system for solar , wind and other renewables . Too many parts , pressure storage and so and and so on. Maybe extremely large ships . Pretty much anything that’s massive such as a ship or grid

These are toys for the rich. I can barely afford fixing my gas powered cars. Fixing these in case of an accident must be astronomical and I am sure insurance rates are adjusted accordingly. These demos are always in sunny warm weather. Cold weather areas of the U.S. is where we want to see how this performs.

Hydrogen is the future(fantasy). But petroleum is the present(reality). Hydrogen will replace petroleum but it’s a 100 year journey.

Looks very good inside out, except for that silly honeycomb thingy on the dashboard A design that prioritize form/look and hindering function/usability/inducing difficulty, that's bad. That is worse than ugly. Gloss black interior plastic trim is usually the most popular offender 😁😂😄😬

Need to pick up their "space age" when using actual space age fuel (2nd screen in the back with bluetooth hardly over the top as already is true in the Cybertruck) other than that good thing i agree for Team GM/Honda as fuel cells are already being regularly used for work with forklifts etc. with plug power, ballard et al and for the Nikola semi truck as well. Ohio a very positive for fuel cell State not just California and Japan as has always been true going on decades now. If the fuel cell stack include vehicle to home charging that would be a huge improvement as well. Manufacturing hydrogen fuel is not nearly so expensive as people think but trying to transport the fuel any great distance is an enormous effort. Surprised Colorado hasn't done more work on this tho let alone Florida "home of the Space Shuttle" hydrogen powered space launch for many decades.

Seems Honda disappoint all round - USA say give us the Hybrid/PHEV, Europe say wa've got the Hybrid/PHEV but give us the Battery EV, Honda says we're listening but we think what you really need is a Fuel Cell car with a bit of a battery thrown in, just so you can at least attempt to get to a hydrogen fueling to top the thing up. It's a clickbait car, poster child and consumer experiment rolled into one. The car is only available on lease, they're not selling it for purchase, with only those close to a Honda site, that has their own hyrdrogen refill pumps to avoid the impact of the closure of public hydrogen stations not under their control.

Been waitimg for this for a few years. But 18 kw battery is disappointing. Better to get rav4 prime. If gets at least 50 miles ev range, then game changer.

Why would Honda (and Toyota) keep wasting time and resources with these science projects all these years. Why not just stick with regular Hybrid...

I thought the point of hydrogen fuel cells was to use less batteries.

That's too many "No"s from me, initally I was very excited, but the facts this is not 4WD/AWD, the ground clearance is lower, the trunk is smaller, and that it's holding only so much hydrogen is making it very high to like. Initially, I was thinking this is going to be a really good alternative to the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, but it's not.

Combined boom potential of H2, high pressure gas, and Li battery 😂

They goofed up that front end. cr-v is best looking cheap suv.

This is a mind-numbing release. Plus it looks like the old generation front end. Why are they wasting resources on this when hydrogen stations are closing? Look up Mirai owners’ videos on here. It’s a disaster.

Too bad the stealerships will charge you 500 just to put air in the tires non negotiable. When are we going to get rid of dealerships?

If this was a CRV Prime, im saying take my money. This is a waste.

it should be hydrogen/ hybrid no worries to be charging