The car of the perpetual future

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Sep 4th 2008
From The Economist print edition

Transport: Mass-produced hydrogen fuel-cell cars have been promised for a decade. Where are they?

Phil WrigglesworthDURING a keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, the boss of General Motors (GM), Rick Wagoner, unveiled the Cadillac Provoq, a new hydrogen fuel-cell concept car. With a drivetrain emitting only water vapour, a 300-mile range and a top speed of 160kph (100mph), the vehicle, said Mr Wagoner, represented “the promise of truly sustainable transportation”. It was a promise that sounded vaguely familiar.

A decade earlier, in 1998, Mr Wagoner’s predecessor, Jack Smith, told the Detroit auto show that GM had a plan to produce a production-ready fuel-cell vehicle “by 2004 or sooner”. That same year, Ford’s incoming boss, Jacques Nasser, said that he saw fuel-cell cars as being a viable alternative to petrol cars for many people during the course of his career (he was replaced in 2001). And as recently as 2004 California’s governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, rhapsodised about “hydrogen highways” all across the state by 2010.

Ever since the writings of Jules Verne in the 19th century, the idea that hydrogen would one day displace fossil fuels has attracted many adherents. Most recently, the dream has centred on hydrogen-fuelled cars, powered by fuel cells—electrochemical devices that combine stored hydrogen with atmospheric oxygen to generate electricity and water vapour. (This means the car produces no CO2 emissions directly, but whether it is emission-free overall depends on the source of the energy used to produce the hydrogen. The hydrogen is more of a temporary store of energy from other sources than a fuel.)

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But the promise of hydrogen-powered personal transport seems as elusive as ever. The non-emergence of hydrogen cars over the past decade is particularly notable since hydrogen power has been a darling of governments worldwide, which have spent billions of dollars in subsidies and incentives to make hydrogen cars a reality.

Proponents of hydrogen fuel-cell technology point to advances that have been made in the size and efficiency of fuel cells, and the appearance of a smattering of hydrogen filling-stations in a few parts of America and Europe. Carmakers are also keen to publicise the handful of trials that are providing them with data on the real-world performance of hydrogen fuel-cell cars.

This year GM and Honda are deploying a few such vehicles, which are being put into the hands of carefully selected drivers. GM has recruited celebrities, journalists, businesspeople and members of the public to test a fuel-cell version of its Chevrolet Equinox. Honda has started leasing small numbers of its FCX Clarity, which it describes as a “production model” to drivers in California.

But aside from these high-profile, low-volume projects, the logistical, technological and economic problems facing hydrogen fuel-cell cars mean that they are very unlikely to make it to market any time soon. One thing holding back hydrogen vehicles is a chicken-and-egg problem: why build cars if there is nowhere to fill them up, or hydrogen filling-stations if there are no cars to use them?

Just around the corner, honest
Earlier this year GM said that despite its own rapid progress on hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, America’s energy industry and government were lagging behind when it came to building hydrogen filling-stations. Mr Wagoner even said that this might mean that hydrogen cars would be deployed elsewhere first—such as China. Honda, meanwhile, is covering itself by developing a Home Energy Station, which drivers of fuel-cell vehicles can use to make their own hydrogen at home, by tapping into the domestic natural-gas supply.

“The real challenge as we move toward retail is that we need to change the nature of the fuelling system,” says Catherine Dunwoody, executive director of the California Fuel-Cell Partnership (CaFCP), an industry body. She says that in order for fuel-cell cars to become a reality, hydrogen filling stations have to move from serving fleets of corporate or municipal vehicles to being able to serve private customers.

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Duncan Macleod, vice-president of Shell Hydrogen, admits that there has been a “disconnected debate” between the carmakers and the fuel companies, but says discussions with carmakers over the past year have been much more productive. He says Shell’s solution to the chicken-and-egg problem is a series of local mini-networks, each comprising hundreds of fuel-cell vehicles and at least two refuelling stations. Despite the grand vision, however, Shell currently has only six hydrogen filling-stations worldwide. BP, another early advocate of hydrogen, is also retreating from its early bullishness: it closed its only hydrogen filling-station in Britain in 2007 and has recently started to switch its focus towards biofuels, rather than hydrogen, as a near-term replacement for petrol.

One thing on which carmakers and energy firms do agree is the need for government funding and the appropriate public policies in order to promote the commercialisation of hydrogen vehicles. Governments in Europe and America have been more than willing to oblige. Since President George Bush launched his Hydrogen Fuel Initiative in 2003, America’s Congress has provided over $1 billion for hydrogen research—though not everyone approves. The Bush administration’s enthusiasm for hydrogen has worked “to the detriment of nearly all other renewable energy sources,” says Severin Borenstein, director of the University of California Energy Institute at Berkeley.

In Europe the flow of funding for hydrogen research has been slower to come, but no less substantial. In May the European Parliament approved