Fuel cell cars still 15 years away at best: study

By Kevin Krolicki

DETROIT (Reuters) - Hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles are still 15 years away from becoming a viable business for automakers even if they overcome remaining technical hurdles and the U.S. government provides massive subsidies, a government-funded report said on Thursday.

Under a best-case scenario, automakers will only be able to sell about 2 million electric vehicles powered by fuel cells by 2020, according to the study by the National Research Council. That would mean that less than 1 percent of the vehicles on U.S. roads by that date would be powered by fuel cells.

In 2003, President George W. Bush had proposed spending $1.2 billion to develop fuel cells and infrastructure. At that time, Bush said the first cars driven by American children born in that year and reaching driving age by 2020 could be fuel cell vehicles.

In 2005, Congress asked the National Research Council to study how much federal spending and other support would be needed to shift a "significant percentage" of new cars to fuel-cell technology by 2020.

General Motors Corp, Honda Motor Co and other automakers are in the process of testing limited fleets of hydrogen-powered fuel-cell cars.

Advocates see the still-emerging technology as a way to cut oil use and carbon dioxide emissions since fuel cells combine stored hydrogen with oxygen to produce electricity. As a result, fuel-cell vehicles emit only water vapor.

But many environmental advocates argue that hybrids and fully battery-powered electric vehicles, such as the upcoming Chevrolet Volt from GM, are the most reliable and cheapest ways to reduce oil consumption in the short term.

Success for fuel-cell technology hinges on building facilities to generate, transport and store hydrogen at filling stations. It will also require automakers to build cheap and durable hydrogen vehicles that consumers want to buy.