That may be the case Chog, but for the short term it's by far the cleanest and efficient. New technologies are at least 10 years away and alternate fuels such as wind/hydroelectric/solar power do not produce enough to be the sole providers. In Australia, we're still relying largely on coal power which is under-producing power compared to our needs, yet outputting huge amounts of CO₂. I don't know if that's a technology we want to go back to.

dont forget where the electricity comes from..dirty dirty power plants, so our environment remains to be screwed!

Ever hear of hydroelectric, solar, wind, and yes, even nuclear power? All relatively clean when compared to burning fossil fuels.

"Clearly, a typical gasoline tank wouldn’t survive a single one of these tests."

Well, technically you can use your gastank for target practice, and it is pretty hard to cause ignition (let alon a nearly impossible explosion)

But, yes, this should outrage everyone that auto and oil companies have colluded for decades on preventing alternative energies. Look at the EV1 documentary!

Now, I agree that right now, hydrogen is less efficient than gasoline, but you are missing some major points. Instead of pollution all along the cities and freeways, in a hydrogen based economy, the pollution would only occur near the hydrogen production plant. This plant could be solar, nuclear, coal, etc. And if all the source pollution was in a few mega-large plants, it would be rather cost effective to scrub pollution from ONE plant, instead of 50 million car exhausts. (duh!)

Not only that, places like Canada where hydroelectric is primary energy source, or France where it is nuclear -- over production of electricity to generate hydrogen is really irrelevant.

Can you imagine a city where the only pollution is oil, antifreeze and rubber? No lead, CO, toxic fumes.

What is really dumb is this technology is waiting on "Fuel Cells"... when it worked in the 70s!!! WTF! I hope the auto execs all go to jail, or hell, or both.

Also, i'm getting tired of people using arguments like "But you have to burn coal to make the electricity to power that automobile so it isn't a solution". The problem of the automobile is a 2 part solution, firstly you need to make the car run on clean fuels, SECONDLY and most importantly you must provide clean energy sources for the fuel, which can be done later down the line... (Fusion, Wind Power, Solar, Hydroelectricity, Geothermal etc) Which has to be done anyway if we intend to keep our atmospheric temperatures anywhere near accepted norms.