Auto giants unite for hydrogen drive

A collection of automobile manufacturers including Daimler, Ford Motor Company, GM, Honda and Toyota have signed a letter of understanding designed to get zero-carbon, hydrogen-powered cars on the road in volume by 2015.

The new alliance of auto manufacturers appears designed to address one of the main barriers to adoption of hydrogen-fuelled vehicles: the absence of a refuelling network to support the vehicles.

"To ensure a successful market introduction of electric vehicles with fuel cells, a hydrogen infrastructure has to be built up with sufficient density," Daimler said in a statement. "The network is required by 2015 and should be built up from metropolitan areas via corridors into area-wide coverage."

Some progress has already been made on both sides of the Atlantic towards the development of so-called "hydrogen highways", and a collection of companies announced last week that they would create a network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Germany.

Meanwhile, California already has a number of hydrogen refuelling stations and the US government recently injected some token funding into hydrogen power, earmarking just over $40 million for 13 different projects in April.

However, the private sector's interest in hydrogen contradicts the US Department of Energy's recent stance on the technology, after its last budget indicated a shift away from hydrogen-powered transport in favour of " technologies with more immediate promise".

In related news, GM announced last week that it has just clocked up one million miles on the road with its Chevrolet Equinox hydrogen-powered vehicle. The Equinox is a test vehicle that is being piloted with a select customer base. It is not expected to be commercially available for several years.

Daimler-owned Mercedes Benz, meanwhile, has announced that it hopes to begin delivering small numbers of its B-Class F-Cell hydrogen-powered car next year.