CLARITY OF PURPOSE

With the 2017 Clarity Fuel Cell, Honda gets serious about fuel-cell power and a hydrogen infrastructure.

We expected some pop and sizzle-at least something vaguely adventurous-to mark the occasion of refueling Honda's all-new 2017 Clarity Fuel Cell sedan with compressed hydrogen pumped in at a heady 10,153 psi (700 bar).

Instead, standing under the stylish translucent sunshade protecting this hydrogen refueling station-one of 26 such public facilities currently operating in Southern California-the experience is exactly how Honda and hydrogen-fuel interests want it to be: nearly indistinguishable from the upscale gas station a stone's throw away.