The company will start within two years by leasing a limited number of cars based on its new FCX prototype, U.S. sales chief John Mendel said in an interview yesterday at a test-drive of the FCX in Monterey, California. Marketing will gradually expand from California to other major U.S. markets, he said.

Honda expects its fuel-cell car to challenge Toyota Motor Corp.'s lead in automobiles that cut pollution and gasoline use, Mendel said. Toyota is the biggest seller of gasoline-electric autos, with models such as the Prius car. Governments are pushing automakers for alternatives to gasoline engines, in part because of concern about carbon emissions linked to global warming.

``We're going to show this isn't `Buck Rogers' stuff, that there's a near-term role'' for hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, Mendel said. ``It will be positioned as the environmental badge of honor for our customers.''

California is developing a Hydrogen Highway Network to serve fuel-cell vehicles, expanding the number of hydrogen stations from 23 now to more than 100 statewide in the next few years.

Fuel cells, typically layers of plastic, carbon fiber and metals such as platinum, create electricity in a chemical process that combines hydrogen and oxygen. Under ideal conditions, the only byproduct is water vapor.

``GM and Honda both are trying to win back attention for environmental vehicles that Toyota has hogged with Prius,'' said analyst Phil Gott, who studies powertrain technologies for market forecaster Global Insight Inc. ``They're both trying to show off technologies that will capture the public's imagination.''

Fuel-Cell Sports Car

The new FCX sedan has a top speed of 100 miles an hour and can travel as far as 270 miles when fully fueled, 30 percent farther than the previous FCX. The fuel-cell stack is 40 percent smaller than in the previous version and increases the electrical output to 100 kilowatts from 86 kilowatts, said Yozo Kami, executive chief engineer for Tokyo-based Honda's FCX program.

General Motors Corp. in September said it planned to build 100 fuel-cell vehicles for U.S. customers next year as part of a program to sell 1,000 such vehicles by 2010.

Toyota, Honda, GM and DaimlerChrysler AG all lease small fleets of fuel-cell vehicles to U.S. universities, governments and companies. Toyota hasn't announced a wider retail plan. David Hermance, Toyota's U.S. executive engineer, told California regulators in September that the company was less optimistic than rivals about how quickly technical hurdles can be solved.

``Honda appears to have a lead in fuel cells, but we're still talking about a technology that the market's not going to be ready for a very long time,'' said Gott, who is based in Lexington, Massachusetts. ``Within five years, we're still talking about sales in the hundreds annually, not hundreds of thousands.''

Honda's U.S. sales operations are based in Torrance, California. The company's American depositary receipts fell 29 cents to $36.17 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading at 4:02 p.m. They have risen 25 percent this year.