Honda offering rental support to Clarity FCV owners during SoCal hydrogen fuel shortage

American Honda offering their free luxury car rental program to support Honda Clarity Fuel Cell Vehicle owners while Air Products sorts things out.

It’s been three weeks and counting since a localized Hydrogen fuel shortage hit Fuel Cell Vehicle owners and there’s finally good news for Honda Clarity owners. While Honda Clarity owners had 21 days of rentals through Honda’s luxury rental car program, American Honda is extending this program to its Clarity lessee’s specifically affected by this situation. Check out a screenshot of their statement below!

The most important part of the statement reads,

“… If a Clarity Fuel Cell lessee is temporarily unable to refuel because of this issue, they may utilize the free luxury car rental program that Honda provides as part of each lease without impacting their twenty-one-day allowance. Any lessees who want to take advantage of the rental option should contact Honda Customer Service at 800-999-1009 for more information.”

Coincidentally enough, a quick glance at the Hydrogen fuel situation and it looks like those stations hit with high demand and little to no refills from Air Products are stabilizing. My guess is that Air products is monitoring those stations hit the worst and redirecting their trucks to stations that need the Hydrogen the most. In addition, the multiple situations that caused this shortage in the first place have by and large are remedied.

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As per some Honda Clarity owners I’ve interacted with online, a few of them dipped into their 21-days of rentals from their lease agreement and are looking for a refund from Honda in light of this new information. Hopefully, Honda honors their requests retroactively.

If you were on the fence between Honda Clarity and Toyota Mirai, this is reassuring news that both companies will do their best to keep their owners happy despite a bleak situation where they have no direct control.

Now, I’m looking forward to some words of reassurance from Air Products so this situation never happens again.