Out of thin air

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Automakers are betting billions the future of driving will be fueled by hydrogen. The Tokyo Auto Show, which opened last week, was dominated by clean and green prototypes designed to wean the world from dwindling supplies of fossil fuels.

Ford Motor Co. has a two-pronged hydrogen program: hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engines as a potential bridge to vehicles such as its own hydrogen-powered fuel cell Focus FCV, which already is being demonstrated in municipal fleets in the United States, Canada, and abroad. General Motors Corp., as part of a billion-dollar initiative, has introduced a car called the Hy-wire, which uses a hydrogen platform that looks much like a skateboard, atop which any number of body types could sit. And DaimlerChrysler has shipped 60 hydrogen Mercedes-Benz A-Class cars to Japan, Germany, Singapore, and the United States for testing.

But it is Honda Motor Co.'s boxy FCX sedan, now in its fifth iteration, that may be the most advanced hydrogen-fueled vehicle to hit the pavement so far.

The motor emits the electric whir of a golf cart, instead of the burble of gasoline exhaust. But the FCX showed on the hills, curves, and highways of New Hampshire during a recent drive that it is subtly powerful, and feels much like driving a standard automobile. To picture yourself behind the wheel, think of riding high in a Honda Civic. The FCX has a thick bottom where the fuel cell stacks are housed. The hydrogen tanks sit beneath the rear seat, while the ultra capacitor -- a non-chemical ''battery" that injects electrical power when demand is high -- slants back behind the seat. The ultra capacitor sets Honda apart from rivals.

Standard features -- air conditioning, automatic climate control, advanced sound system, cruise control, traction control -- are all part of the FCX package.

The car accelerated with sure speed down entrance ramps and, on the highway, cruised silently and effortlessly in the fastest of commuter lanes.

Yet driving this technological marvel -- all million dollars-plus of it -- is like taking a sleek, America's Cup sailboat into a wind-starved Sargasso Sea. The Honda vessel is here, but how do we capture the breeze for its sails -- the hydrogen?

''It's all potential right now," said David Friedman, research director for the clean vehicle program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Cambridge nonprofit group that seeks environmental solutions. ''The hydrogen future is two to three decades away, at least," he said.

Hydrogen, an infinitely renewable resource, is viewed by many as the long-term answer to dependence on dwindling supplies of fossil fuels. The research funded by the automobile industry could be the catalyst to develop fuel cells that could one day run our laptop computers, homes, factories, or entire communities.

For that to happen, though, analysts warn that the industry will have to settle on some common standards.

''They're not all working together, using the same type of technology," said Anthony Pratt, senior manager for global power trains at J.D. Power and Associates, the global marketing information firm. In the next decade, Pratt does not foresee hydrogen vehicles sold in significant numbers. But, he added, ''Do I think we'll see hydrogen vehicles in our lifetime? Absolutely."

The FCX offers some tangible proof that the technical hurdles of developing a hydrogen vehicle can be cleared.

''Obviously you need to advance the technology," said Ben Knight, vice president of automotive engineering at Honda Research and Development, Americas. That means expanding the range of hydrogen-powered vehicles that today, under best circumstances, travel fewer than 200 miles on two tanks of fuel. It means making them lighter -- the small, Civic-sized FCX weighs nearly two tons. It means refining them so they can work in extreme climates.

But those are technological goals toward which Honda, among others, has moved rapidly since its first hydrogen car was introduced in 1999. For instance, the size of the fuel-cell stacks that use the onboard hydrogen and available oxygen to produce the electricity that powers the FCX has been halved. And the car uses its hydrogen nearly two-thirds more efficiently.

The larger hurdles will be finding the most environmentally friendly, cost-efficient way of producing hydrogen.

And beyond that, said Friedman, will be the monumental task of creating an infrastructure to supply hydrogen vehicles with their needed fuel, and moving through what will be a many-years-long process of turning over the nation's automotive fleet as drivers are weaned from their gasoline, diesel, and hybrid vehicles.

Honda's Knight said that there will have to be an effort to prepare the market by educating consumers so they ''understand the benefits" of the technology. Honda already has launched this last effort, providing hydrogen cars to municipal and state governments and even leasing, for $500 per month, an FCX to a California family.

The FCX uses its fuel stack to create electricity that directly powers an electric motor connected to the front wheels. The process of combining hydrogen and oxygen to make electricity produces pure ''exhaust" -- water.

But Honda and environmental advocates such as Friedman say this application is only one potential use of hydrogen.

Honda, for instance, also is developing a home energy station that would use another method of producing hydrogen -- stripping the hydrogen from natural gas in a refrigerator-size ''processor" and using the electricity produced to power a home, the heat from the process to help warm it, and the hydrogen to fuel the family automobile.

It would be ''the ultimate power plant," Knight said.

Yet there is some debate over the best way to produce or extract hydrogen. Stripping it from natural gas, for example, means relying on another limited fuel source.

''If we rely on natural gas, we're going to be pretty much back in the same place," Friedman said. Not only is its supply finite, but much of it comes from outside the United States and much of that from below the sands of the Middle East.

Another method of extracting hydrogen is to use electricity to extract it from water. Yet that depends on a power source that relies on coal, oil, or natural gas for its own production. Best, said Friedman, would be a system that uses solar or wind power to produce electricity and then use that electricity to do the job. For instance, Honda's ''gas station" in Torrance, Calif., has a pump that looks much like your standard gas pump -- except that it distributes hydrogen that is produced using solar power from a long panel mounted nearby.

Royal Ford can be reached atford@globe.com.