Close to a half dozen Hydrogen powered cars can be seen on camera as this Honda Clarity FCV owner waited her turn to fill up at an Iwatani station in Mountain View.
In a scene reminiscent of last year in Southern California and, in a way, the gas shortage of the ’70’s, dozens of hydrogen-powered FCV cars lined up at this Mountain View Iwatani Hydrogen station earlier today (June 4, 2019) as Northern California Fuel Cell Vehicle owners start to cope with a hydrogen supply shortage that’s just beginning to hit.
In a video shared with me earlier today, this Honda Clarity Fuel Cell Vehicle owner can be seen with a scrap of paper in hand and her Clarity parked in the shade as she waited her turn to fill up.
In a piece I shared with you earlier yesterday, hundreds of FCV owners are coming to grips with finding a new Hydrogen station to fill up at from the handful of stations available
H2 supply shortage hits N. California again, Air Products distribution trailer explodes
Iwatani, formerly Linde, is the next largest supplier of Hydrogen Fuel for FCVs in Northern California with four other stations in Mountain View, San Ramon, San Juan Capistrano, and West Sacramento.
As per the current station map via CAFCP.org, the only other station in the greater Bay Area that’s not supplied by Air Products and not effected besides the Iwatani stations is a Messer station in Emeryville.
Iwatani of North America currently has an ongoing contract with NASA to provide them with Hydrogen indefinitely so I’m assuming reliability is much better with their process.
According to first-hand reports from people filling up, Iwatani stations have attendants on hand assisting FCV owners as they come in, ensuring that everyone who comes fills up in an orderly fashion.
Talk about customer service.
As of this moment, Air Products has an ongoing investigation as to the cause of their explosion in Santa Clara and there is no definite time table when normal delivery.
Do you have anything to share? Are you an FCV owner going through this latest shortage? Let me know in the comments or hit me up via e-mail at info@tiremeetsroad.com to share whatever you’d like to share.
Today July 18, 2019 I am in South Lake Tahoe with not enough fuel to get to my home in San Ramon, Ca. I Have been to San Diego and allo or the Bay Area with my 2017 Clarity. 1 have about 12000 miles on my car.
I have been a long time Honda owner and was excited to try a hydrogen fuel cell car. I have personally been in contact with Honda USA in Torrence,CA and the group’s supporting the hydrogen maps. I now feel that a total review of the fuel cell car sales needs a investigation by the state consumers agency and the Attorney’s General Office in Sacramento.
It is quite clear to me that all parties involved in this fuel cell car experiment have grossly underestimated the difficulty in creating a infrastructure to support the Honda and manufactures who now sale fuel cell cars.
I will call tomorrow to have my Honda Clarity towed to my home tomorrow. I am very disappointed in Honda and believe this is a black mark on a very promising technology for the future.
I would not be surprised if owners start considering legal solutions to this matter because of lost time of use car, lost time, and potentially breech of lease agreement.
I apologize for any bad spelling or grammar errors as I did this on telephone.
Agree completely. Few weeks ago I moved to California and leased a Clarity FCV. I was not advised in the least about the current hydrogen fuel shortages, I asked repeatedly and was told there were NO problems. This lack of transparency is false advertising and / or outright fraud. I do not understand how this is legal. Wish there were an attorney to help us, apparently this is ongoing and many owners have been left stranded. I’ve been in contact corporate Honda requesting to be switched to a non-hydrogen lease, have not heard back yet . I love Honda and have been loyal for 20 years but this debacle is making me lose confidence in them.
There seems to be an even more extreme shortage now, just a handful of stations in NorCal have fuel today, and they are very low, long waiting time between fill ups. Time for a update on this story?
Buy a battery car. No wonder Toyota are giving those Mirais away for next to nothing. Sorry this was promising but it is an utter failure.
Get a Tesla and fuel it at home. For cheaper.