I agree. My MS thesis (not too many years ago) was on advanced vehicle technologies. Part of my MS requirement was also to write a proposal for this DOE project.
Although several automakers -- including DaimlerChrysler AG, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. -- have said they expect to have fuel-cell vehicles in showrooms within the next four or five years, wide availability of such cars is probably a decade or more away.
Fuel Cell vehicles won't happen any time soon. The next evolving vehicle will be hybrid electric. People are not going to sacrifice PERFORMANCE for an expensive toy. Watch 'em in Califonia starting to back-up on their emmissions and "ZEV's" (Zero Emmision Vehicle) mandates they set forth back in the early 90's for this year.
A natural gas - Electric hybrid is what I predict when they get through playing with the gasoline-electric hybrids. There is already a fair infastructure in place for this. Fill your car up in your garage! Hybrids are on the market and the market for them will expand.
Even if you derive the hydrogen from oil or natural gas, the increased efficiency of the total fuel cell-electricity-electric motor-mechanical energy combination cycle is still sufficiently more efficient than the thermal engine-mechanical motion (gasoline or diesel)cycle to make it cost effective.
I found several different sites (you can do your own search) but this seems to be a fairly clear cut description of Hydrogen and fuel cells.
http://www.humboldt.edu/~serc/h2fuel.html
The first rule the administration could and should make, by fiat, is to stop exempting light trucks and vans from the CAFE requirements. The average miles per gallon of all vehicles on the road would pretty quickly rise by a considerable fraction, perhaps 15-20%.
Another massive federal welfare program for the automakers to blow a bunch of money on. Basically, like a lot of other Clinton programs "conservatives" used to rail against, Bush has merely exchanged one federal boondoggle and substituted his own.
Motto of the New! GOP under Bush, Hastert and Lott.
"At least he's our thief."
More and more geologist now think that the earth is continual production of oil and we haven't even scratched the surface yet.
Look it up, there have always been an increasing amount of reserves over previous years, and the projected shortage is always a few years ahead, and based on zero new discovery.
” The Bush administration launched a partnership today with domestic automakers to spur the growth of hydrogen fuel cells for the next generation of cars and trucks,...”
And 18 years later that taxpayer money has produced... nothing.