Newly redesigned for the 2023 model year, Honda’s CR-V is more spacious and techier than its predecessors and features a tuned-up turbocharged four-cylinder engine and a reworked hybrid option. It’s a steadfast compact SUV that doesn’t call a lot of attention to itself. With the Japanese company’s latest announcement, it feels like a curve ball to learn that not only is Honda’s next green vehicle is the humble CR-V, but also that it’s going feature a plug-in fuel cell powertrain.

Way back in 2006, Honda unveiled its avant-garde FCX concept, a hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle touted with promises of five-minute refueling and zero emissions. That nascent idea became the FCX Clarity, the first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle sold to retail customers on an extremely limited basis as a lease in Southern California. Honda finally gave up the ghost, ending production of the Clarity in 2021.

That’s not stopping Honda from trying again with the plug-in FCEV CR-V, expected to be available in 2024. The hydrogen-powered CR-V will be built at Honda’s Performance Manufacturing Center in Marysville, Ohio, using domestic and globally sourced parts. Historically used for small-batch production like the NSX, the FCEV CR-V (sheesh, that’s a lot of initials) will fit in quite well at the PMC.

Hydrogen fuel has been on a slow road to adoption despite being quicker to fill up a hydrogen car than charge a purely electric vehicle. As explained by the U.S. Energy Information…