Fuel Cell

It's hard to keep things secret in the auto industry. So when Bloomberg reported yesterday that German luxury maker BMW had broken off talks with General Motors on joint development of fuel cells, writer Dorothee Tschampa explained why. It appears BMW jilted GM because it found a more attractive...

You can virtually throw a stone these days and hit someone developing a "fuel of the future", but some do appear to show more promise than others. Many options for future transportation have their disadvantages, but Alchemy Research believes there's one option that could solve several of our fuel...

Even more so than with electric cars, the future of hydrogen vehicles depends on a network of filling stations to allow people to go about their journeys as normal. That future has taken a blow in California, with the news that $27 million in grants for hydrogen filling stations has been revoked by...

A team of researchers at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, has opened the door to a future of clean, cheap hydrogen fuel by ditching a popular platinum catalyst in favor of one based on two low cost alternatives, nickel and molybdenum. Until now, the manufacture of hydrogen gas has...

Hydrogen fuel-cell cars have not progressed as fast as some companies had predicted 10 or 15 years ago. No carmaker sells a fuel-cell vehicle in any kind of volume, but plug-in electric cars are on sale in North America, Europe, and Asia, with tens of thousands sold (and likely more than 100,000...

Every automaker goes to great lengths to promote their cars. Sometimes, the resulting publicity stunts are nothing short of genius. Other times they’re cringeworthy. But Mercedes’ latest publicity stunt is so visually stunning you might not see it at all. That’s because Mercedes...

President Obama might have promised to buy a plug-in Chevrolet Volt when he leaves office, but that doesn’t mean the Obama administration has forgotten about other alternative fuel cars. On Thursday last week, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a $6 million fund which it hopes to use to...

A surprising number of technological innovations have been developed through the military, and subsequently found their way into daily use - microwaves, cell phone technology, the internet and more, all have their roots in military systems. Sometimes, the civilian world can give something back -...

One of Toyota's more distinctive vehicles on display at last month's Detroit Auto Show was the FCV-R fuel-cell concept. Joining electric, plug-in hybrids and regular hybrids on Toyota's green car roster, the forward-thinking Japanese automaker is clearly keen to explore every avenue. Toyota has...

With such a focus on alternative propulsion for cars, it's easy for forget that every day, millions of other vehicles are used around the world. Bikes, for example, or scooters and motorcycles - we've seen those going electric recently. Fork-lift trucks have been electric for years. But what about...

California has long been at the forefront of developing rules to reduce automotive pollution levels, but a vote held yesterday could prove to be a landmark for green cars. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has been voting on regulations requiring 15 percent of new cars sold in the state by...

The launch of a new Mercedes-Benz E-Class is always important, given the influence the car has in the luxury sedan sector. We'd be hard-pressed to call it exciting though, rapid AMG models excepted. That could be about to change however, as one example of the model's next generation will be very...

While most of Toyota's focus for fuel efficiency remains on its growing lineup of Prius dedicated hybrids, the company said almost two years ago that it would launch a hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle in 2015. Its latest concept vehicle designed around fuel-cell technology is the FCV-R, which it unveiled...

It's sometimes easy to forget about fuel cell vehicles, with so much emphasis by manufacturers on electric cars and hybrids as a way of weaning ourselves off gasoline. Honda still perseveres however, as does Mercedes-Benz with recent concept cars such as the F125!, shown at September's Frankfurt...

While electric-car advocates may avoid the issue, some buyers simply won't choose a plug-in car that can't travel unlimited distances. That's where the Chevy Volt-style range extender comes in, though the Volt adds unlimited range by burning gasoline in a conventional engine to generate electric...

With the 42nd Tokyo Auto Show just weeks away, Japanese automaker Toyota has detailed more about the four cars it will premiere at the show, including the much-anticipated Prius C compact hybrid, the FCV-R fuel-cell vehicle, and the FT-EVIII and Fun-Vii electric cars. Toyota Prius C One of the auto...

For the past few years, Toyota executives have been keen to point out that the Japanese automaker is working on bringing a production hydrogen fuel cell car to market by 2015. But according to recent reports, Toyota has changed the estimated price of the as-yet un-named fuel cell car from $50,000...

Mercedes-Benz's F125 plug-in hybrid concept is officially called a "research vehicle," but the hydrogen fuel cell sedan could quite possibly represent the future of the luxury automobile.

Tulane University researchers have discovered a strain of bacteria capable of producing butanol directly from cellulose, which could help pave the way towards using trash to produce biofuel.

We're on record with the analysis that electric-car production will far, far outweigh that of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles built over the next decade, and perhaps longer. Still several carmakers are pressing ahead with plans to build hydrogen-powered vehicles, and now Pike Research has ranked them...