The Honda FCX Clarity is Loved by Celebrities While the New Civic Natural Gas Seeks Greater Importance Among desparate California Commuters
In Hollywood, it is well known that many of the A-List elite have espoused the endless merits of the merits of their humble Toyota Prius in the press but it’s 2012 people and do you honestly think that the omnipresent 50 mile per gallon vehicle is the only car Leonardo DiCaprio or Cameron Diaz owns or drives? And despite their clear good intentions to do their part to help the environment, the only celebrities left in LA with Priuses only use them to blend into all the other Prii that have literally become omnipresent and oddly loved by a wide array of divergent socio-economic groups.
So although the Nissan LEAF is still a ZEV according to California state officials as is the Chevy Volt, the Honda Clarity powered by hydrogen (lots of celebs have owned them as sales are currently limited to Southern California due to this being the only place where hydrogen is relatively easy to find.) Or you can fly a bit more under the radar with the new, improved and very affordable 2012 Honda Civic Natural Gas which is powered by a fuel used by many fleets and buses meaning its relatively easy to find.
It’s a shame that Arnold Schwarzenegger got so little done during his reign as California’s Governator that a planned expansion of hydrogen stations all over Northern California would have afforded Honda some sort of fighting chance to impress the scary electric car lobby that might one day kill off your ability to own a car that burns gasoline and anything non-electric and while we would still technically live here in the United States most electric vehicles we have driven are decent to drive yet never stoked our driving passion like the Clarity.
But brilliance with no thought of cost to a company is expensive stuff and we have yet to get anyone at Honda to commit to the amount it is rumored that they lose each time they build a new unit. And don’t get us started on development costs for an all-new model shared with no other Honda but built to optimize the safety of the center mounted hydrogen cell all the while offering the handling and steering of the finest handling low slung Honda and Acura models of the past.
Sadly, the Clarity is only available to customers for 3 years at $600 a month and no lease extensions have have ever been made not even for Jamie Lee Curtis. Oops, we said we wouldn’t list past owners of the Clarity as a sign of respect for those famous folks and no-names who have spent three years piloting the automotive Starship Enterprise only to find that they are now standing alone back in Cleveland with the keys to their old Yugo hatch.
So we have shown some respect for previous owners of the FCX Clarity because not only was it one of our most memorable road test vehicles ever, it hurt the day it left us (after being driven just the week before by Matthew Morrison who plays Will Schuester on the hit show “Glee” while attending a White House Press Gala along with three other cast members we later researched via date matching of that particular event were probably Corey Monteith, Lea Michelle and Amber Riley who attended their first White House event at the White House in our Clarity road tester.
Apologies for the gratuitous bit of name of name dropping dbut this column demands a bit of that.
Honda FCX Clarity
- Scott Neidermayer, Famous Professional NHL Ice Hockey Player (now retired)
- Jon Landau, "Avatar" Producer/Clearly James Cameron is losing his touch with cutting edge technology or Mr. Landau hides things from Mr. Cameron for fear he might take credit for it. Pure editorial conjecture this would be as Mr. Landau nor Mr. Cameron returned any emails even when written in Nav’i.
- Ron Yerxa, ("Little Miss Sunshine" Producer)—He and wife took delivery of first model in the United States.
Honda Civic Natural Gas
(George Parros)—Professional NHL Player with our favorite local Hockey Team the Anah