Honda Motor Co. expects the company will be able to produce fuel-cell vehicles for the general market by 2018, the company's President, Takeo Fukui, said in a recent interview with Kyodo News.
"In 2008, we will begin lease sales of a new fuel-cell car." Fukui told Kyodo. "By evolving a next model based on this, I think the level of technology will become very close to that of mass-produced ordinary vehicles within 10 years or so."
The executive said customers would be willing to buy the hydrogen-powered vehicles if they cost less than the equivalent of about $80,000.
Nissan Motor said earlier this month it expects to unveil a fuel-cell vehicle in Japan and North America in the early 2010s.