Honda Clarity Fuel Cell 2017 first drive

It's unobtainable, that's the first thing you should know about this new Hydrogen-powered Honda Clarity Fuel Cell. The company may have decided to show this car in Europe, and to run small fleets in interested markets, but it won't be selling it in Europe until the next-generation model arrives in five years' time. True, the car's on sale in tiny numbers in the US and Japan, for the equivalent of £40,000, but there's no such deal on this side of the pond.

Why show it all? One suspects, to show the extent of Honda's fuel cell progress so far and to prevent Toyota, whose fuel cell Toyota Mirai you can actually buy, from gathering all the glory. Honda has been working on this technology for 30 years, and considers itself the leader, even if it chooses not to sell cars here yet.

At present, Honda's Clarity pilot plant in Japan can only make three cars a day, and that output is fully utilised sending cars to more promising outposts of the hydrogen-fuelled world - Germany, Denmark, California and, of course, oil-short Japan, where hydrogen fuelling stations are being built at a greater rate than our own. Besides, Honda still has to get costs down further (the Clarity would cost more than £40,000 here).

Here's the bottom line on the new Honda Clarity Fuel Cell saloon: it is civilised, comfortable, easy to drive and desirable to anyone who likes electrically driven cars and puts a high value on smoothness, quietness and an abiding feeling of plushness.

The new Clarity indisputably shows the potential of the design. It's a big car, a 4.9-metre-long saloon with a body made from an expensive-sounding amalgam of ultra-high tensile steel, aluminium and composite. Honda claims it as "the world's most advanced fuel cell vehicle" on the grounds that it has greatly reduced the size of every powertrain component (fuel cell stack, power electronics and electric drive motor) so that the total assembly fits under the bonnet in a space slightly smaller than the drivetrain of one of its 3.5-litre V6 models.

The Clarity has two fuel tanks - one under the rear seat, another behind it - carrying a total of 5kg of hydrogen (the same as the Mirai) and Honda claims this 1800kg car has the longest driving range of any zero-emissions vehicle so far.