Car makers Daimler, Ford and Nissan have announced the signing of a three-way agreement for the development of a common fuel cell stack and fuel cell system for use in separately branded Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEV). With each making an equal investment, the companies hope to have "the world’s first affordable, mass-market FCEVs" on sale by 2017.
This announcement is not only a statement of engineering intentions. In a press release, the three companies said that its purpose was also to send a message to governments and industries about the need to build more hydrogen refueling stations and infrastructure. This in itself is important because in the U.S. alone there are currently only ten refueling stations, and without adequate infrastructure hydrogen-powered vehicles would not be feasible.
Source: Daimler
This decision leaves me pleasantly surprised - with three companies agreeing on engineering standards for fuel cells, others may very well bid to conform to the standards that result from this agreement, and that can only be good for all parties involved, the consumer included.
Not going to be easy to coordinate everything happening at once.
I think fuel cell vehicles are cool. It is neat to have something that has water vapor as its exhaust. :)
One of the most promising methods of producing hydrogen from water on the horizon is synthetic photosynthesis. The energy input is "free" solar radiation. When/if it becomes "practical", it would appear to be much more efficient than using solar cells to electrolyze water to produce hydrogen. Here's hoping.