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It's a touch ironic that the world isn't quite ready for a car we have been promised will arrive for more than 10 years. But that's the situation with the Honda FCX Clarity, the fuel-cell car that runs on hydrogen and emits only water.

Maybe it's because there have been so many distractions - hybrids, ethanol, bioethanol, electric, etc - that we've missed this one coming. Or maybe we heard 'hydrogen', thought 'bomb' and took cover.

But whatever the reason, perhaps it was a mistake to ignore it, as the Honda FCX Clarity works on lots of levels. Here are a few for starters.

Hydrogen can be made anywhere there's a water and electricity supply, so you don't need to drill for or transport anything. Using hydrogen, you can store and quickly refill a large amount of fuel energy in a relatively small space, which you still can't with batteries.

Hydrogen burns completely clean, so there's no local pollution. The flammability of hydrogen - its tendency to go bang when around heat - is lower than that for petrol vapour, so the bomb you should be worried about is in your garage, not in this Honda.

Starting to sound like a wonderfuel, isn't it? Perhaps, but here are a few of the downsides, lest I start to sound biased. Hydrogen is currently made using fossil fuels, so it does create pollution at the site it is made.

It also requires a hugely expensive fuel cell packed with more precious metals than the crown jewels to turn the hydrogen into electricity. And, probably the most relevant problem, there's almost nowhere to fill up a hydrogen-powered car.

So, balancing the pluses against the minuses, you'd think it's far from a done deal that the FCX Clarity has much chance at success. And that would be true - anywhere other than California, where the car is going exclusively on sale this year. Here in the Golden State, Honda will be able to sell as many as it makes.

For the people who have made the awkward, expensive and not-green Prius the third best selling Toyota in the US, the Clarity is the new motoring messiah. A website set up for prospective Clarity customers crashed the day after it went live because so many people wanted to sign up for one.

But then, that's not entirely due to its green credentials. Sure, there are a few yogurt-weavers who are giving their trees an extra big hug and opening a bottle of hemp wine about the arrival of the Clarity.