California Family to test Hydrogen Car

One lucky (?) California family will become the guinea pig for the hydrogen-fueled automobile.

In a long-term road test, John Spallino, his wife and two daughters will begin leasing a silver-and-blue, four-seat Honda FCX on Wednesday to get them to work, school and anywhere else they want to roam.

The Spallinos will provide reports about the car's performance to Honda as part of the auto industry's first private test of the promising technology that produces only one byproduct - water clean enough to drink.

"Maybe this is the technology of the future. Maybe it isn't," said the easygoing Spallino, a financial officer who plans to use the FCX for his 80-mile roundtrip commute from his home in Redondo Beach to Irvine.

"But if I can be part of the evolution of this technology, that would be a lot of fun," he said.

The test could give a push to pollution-free cars, said Lindsay Brooke, a senior analyst for CSM Worldwide, an automotive forecasting company.