Honda starts leasing FCX to customers, including Jamie Lee Curtis

American Honda Motor Co., Inc., announced that its second FCX Clarity customer, Jamie Lee Curtis, took delivery of the vehicle on July 31, 2008. Curtis and husband Christopher Guest are the second of approximately 200 customers who will begin leasing the vehicle in the United States and Japan over the next three years.

"I really wasn't expecting it to be so luxurious," said Curtis. "It's luxurious, luxurious, luxurious! I love the interior layout, design and access to controls. It is user-friendly and very modern."

Actress and children's book author Curtis and her husband, filmmaker Guest, live in Santa Monica. They have owned other alternative fuel and hybrid vehicles and continue to seek out ways to live and advocate a greener lifestyle.

Ron Yerxa and Annette Ballester, Santa Monica residents, took delivery of the first FCX Clarity on July 25, 2008.

The FCX Clarity is a next-generation, hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicle. Significant advances over Honda's previous generation FCX include a 25 percent increase in combined fuel economy to 72 miles/kg-H2* (74 mpg GGE ) and a greater than 30 percent increase in driving range up to 280 miles*. Propelled by an electric motor that runs on electricity generated in the fuel cell, the vehicle's only by-products are heat and water, and its fuel efficiency is three times that of a modern gasoline-powered automobile.