Honda Clarity and Toyota Mirai owners, although outraged over weeks long FCV Hydrogen shortage, do recognize how well Iwatani and True Zero are proactively reacting.

From hydrogen manufacturers and FCV car makers all the way to the end users, the FCV lessees themselves, the local FCV market in Northern California (and arguably all of California) is affected by the latest factory explosion in Santa Clara at an Air Products facility.

But according to a handful of Honda Clarity owners with presumably similar viewpoints as fellow Toyota Mirai drivers, it’s been an opportunity for Iwatani and True Zero to really empathize and step up customer service.

The handful of good customer service stories I’ve come across are from a Honda Clarity owners group and their experiences at the Iwatani-owned Hydrogen station in Mountain View shared with Moffet Gas Mart.

According to one FCV user, Mr. Go Yamaguchi, the Vice President of Iwatani Hydrogen Gas, was present at their Mountain View station monitoring the sole hydrogen pump in searing 100-degree weather, answering questions and quite possibly filling cars himself.

Another FCV lessee identified that same Mr. Yamaguchi answering phone calls when questions flooded their Santa Clara office. Can you imagine the VP of anything answering customer phonecalls?

In that same vein, when a call was made to Iwatani about their temporarily inactive San Ramon pump and when it would come back online, an Iwatani rep personally texted that FCV driver several times with pertinent information until the pump was finally ready to use.

And reading a couple of other comments, it looks like as long as that particular Iwatani station is delivering Hydrogen to FCVs, there’s an attendant at hand making sure each car gets filled as efficiently and in a timely manner as possible.

Finally, although most Northern California True Zero stations are running on a limited capacity, I’ve seen a True Zero rep and even the CEO himself go out of his way to post detailed status updates on this unofficial Facebook group of sorts. Questions from FCV drivers are also answered in a timely fashion.

Both Iwatani and True Zero don’t have to be out there in the hot sun assisting customers nor do they have to go on Facebook groups to answer questions.

At most, they just have to make sure that the pumps are operational and storage tanks filled. But to offer this level of customer service in this arguable hydrogen shortage crisis is noteworthy.

Air Products has put out one statement with three updates since this shortage hit.

I put this blog post out there as a sounding board if any other FCV owners and lessees have anything to say regarding their experiences with Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, and particular stations, good or bad in the comments below.

In addition, I’m in no way connected to these two station owners, it’s just that this was a welcome silver lining in the muck that is bad news for FCV lesses as of late that even I was surprised to find.