Honda creates bottled water brand using hydrogen from its cars’ emissions

Honda claims that the water produced by its new hydrogen vehicle is pure enough to drink.

The world’s water crisis continues to worsen, while air pollution levels continue to do the same. We’ve seen admirable efforts looking to tackle both issues here at Springwise in the past, but this latest idea from Honda is the first we’ve seen that aims to address both simultaneously.

The automotive manufacturer’s FCX Clarity vehicle runs on compressed hydrogen rather than diesel or petrol, and therefore produces no harmful emissions. On the contrary, the emissions is does produce take the form of pure water, which Honda claims is so pure it is drinkable. To advertise the fact, the Honda Australia team have produced their own water brand, H2O, which they distributed for free in Australian cinemas:

The bottle’s label reads: “Delicious, fresh H2O from a pristine mineral spring, cool mountain glacier or … the exhaust pipe of the Honda FCX. The world’s first hydrogen-powered car that emits only water. Water so clean and pure, you could put it in a bottle and drink it. Now isn’t that refreshing?”

The reality is, however, that the water actually in the H2O bottles is not created by the FCX clarity. There are still very few of the Honda vehicles in existence, and it would take a huge amount of driving to produce the necessary volume of water. Honda admits, “if you’re holding a bottle of our specially produced H2O water in your hand right now, you’ve been drinking plain old spring water. If you want to taste the real thing, you’ll have to travel to California, Japan or the UK where the FCX is currently available.”

While an intriguing marketing campaign, water bottles themselves are still damaging for the environment, and the fact that the water in the bottles is not produced by the cars does reduce the impact of the messaging. However, if hydrogen cars could find a way to truly capitalize on their water emissions in the future, this could be a bright sign of things to come.