The view from the driver's seat:
Inside the hydrogen car, everything is standard apart from a small pressure instrument - the fuel gauge... Starting the hydrogen car is no different from starting the petrol model, and engine noise sounds familiar too.

... the intake system combines a pre-mix air/fuel system for light load driving... There is also a direct-injection system through a dedicated hydrogen port which opens when the air intake port is closed. This is effective in increasing available power for higher speed driving...

When the fuel pressure gets low, the power drops noticeably and the car slows dramatically. Changing down the gears makes little or no appreciable difference and even with 20 percent pressure available, the car is effectively unable to carry on. Refuelling these prototypes takes about 15 minutes from start to finish.

Unlike piston-engines, the rotary engine has separate intake and combustion chambers. This allows the rotary engine to avoid the backfiring and preignition problems that other engines have experienced. The rotor draws the air and hydrogen in as it passes the top of the cycle, then moves the mixture to the lower right and compresses it, where it is ignited to drive the engine.

Official: 'Hydrogen Highway' Realistic
Thu Feb 26, 5:05 AM ET Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo!

By DON THOMPSON, Associated Press Writer

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (news - web sites)'s top environmental aide told state lawmakers the governor's vision of a "hydrogen highway" that would usher in an age of cleaner cars is realistic by 2010, and won't even cost the state much money.

Schwarzenegger pledged to build hydrogen fueling stations every 20 miles along major highways, allowing motorists to buy clean-burning hydrogen-fueled vehicles without fear they will run out of gas.

He chose 2010 because that's when automakers have said such vehicles will be affordable and readily available, said Environmental Protection Secretary Terry Tamminen.

"California does invent the future," Tamminen said. Though there are plenty of unknowns, "there are no show-stoppers. The only area where some of us disagree is on timing."

California Energy Commission member Jim Boyd warned that the cost is too high. And Toyota Motor Co.'s Bill Reinert said that despite a decade of research and development, any promises are premature.

The automotive industry still is years away from developing the smaller, cheaper, more efficient and longer-lasting fuel cells that are needed before consumers will buy many hydrogen-fueled vehicles, Reinert said.

"We're not even close to solving storage technology issues yet," Reinert said. Though he expects technology will develop "dramatically" over the next few years, "we still have significant challenges along the way."

Other witnesses before the Assembly Select Committee on Air and Water Quality said a strong push by the state and federal governments is needed.

S. David Freeman, a top energy aide to former Gov. Gray Davis (news - web sites) who now heads a company involved in hydrogen-powered vehicles, said the state should consider floating more long-term debt to pay for the project. But Tamminen said the cost to the state could be minimal.

Schwarzenegger's proposed network amounts to about 200 fueling stations, a fraction of California's 10,000 retail gasoline stations, Tamminen said.

Twenty-five of those stations will soon be available, and Tamminen projected more can be built by universities, waste conversion stations and automakers at little cost to the state.

Originally posted by now
as it is today, to go a mile on hydrogen would cost the
use of enough energy to go 5 miles on gasoline.
by the time you make the hydrogen and compress it
into a usable package to go any distance the energy
used is 5 to 10 times what you will get out of the stored
hydrogen, unless there are some real changes to the
way hydrogen is made and stored I don't think it will
ever be in wide use in cars.

Originally posted by projekt
maybe they could store it as a liquid