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www.ADandP.media A company that you probably haven't heard of is FCSM, LLC. That's because it hasn't been around for very long, just since January 2017. The acronym ahead of the comma stands for "Fuel Cell System Manufacturing." It is a joint venture between General Motors and Honda Motor Company. It is establishing a fuel cell manufacturing operation within the GM battery pack production plant in Brownstown Township, Michigan. It is expected to start production in 2020. The president of FCSM is Suheb Haq of GM. He was previously director of GM Operational Excellence. The vice president is Tomomi Kosaka of Honda. He was president and CEO of Honda of America Mfg., Inc., which meant that he was responsible for manufacturing operations at three auto assembly plants and an engine plant in Ohio. Given the experience of both Haq and Kosaka, it seems clear that FCSM is serious about manufacturing advanced fuel cells for automo- tive (and potentially non-automotive) applications. Those fuel cells aren't going to be ready for a few years, but the people at Honda aren't waiting. They believe that there is a need for serious CO2 reductions, sooner rather than later. And they believe that fuel cells have the potential of having the greatest effect on environmental improvements going forward. But they also know that getting a vehicle that is both cost-ef- fective and appealing to consumers—to say nothing of the fact that there needs to be an infrastructure (i.e., literal "gas" stations) for refueling—is a huge challenge, one they've been addressing since doing basic research on fuel cells since the late 1980s. (They developed an experimental fuel-cell powered Odyssey minivan in 1998 in which the fuel cell equipment was so large that the vehicle could only accommodate one adult; it was, in actuality, a rolling chemical plant.) On June 29, 2005, then senior vice president, American Honda automotive operations, John Mendel announced, "American Honda Motor Co. is thrilled to introduce the world's first fuel cell family," speaking of the Spallinos of Redondo Beach, California, who took a two-year lease on a 2005 Honda FCX. They became, according to Honda, the first individual customers— as distinct from fleet customers, which Honda had been working with for three years before that—in the world to lease a fuel-cell-powered vehicle—from any company. In 2007, Honda came out with the FCX Clarity, a four-place vehicle (the car the Spallinos had, which was based on the platform that was used for the EV PLUS vehicle that it introduced in 1996, was also a four-place vehicle.) One of the things that Kiyoshi Shimizu, chief engineer/development leader, at Honda R&D;, and his team learned from customer Honda is no stranger to putting fuel cell vehicles on the U.S. roads. The world's first lease of a fuel cell vehicle to a family happened in California with a model year 2005 FCX. It was followed by the 2008 FCX Clarity. And now the company is producing the 2017 Clarity Fuel Cell. 37 AD&P; ∕ MAY 2017 CLARITY