Ideal Bite

Michael J. Fox promised me hoverboards by 2015. I'm pretty sure that ain't happening.

But I got a taste of some other futuristic technology last week at the California Fuel Cell Partnership. The CFCP is a rare display of collaboration between major car companies, oil companies, greentech companies...pretty much anyone that has to do with using or providing energy. Their goal: To make cars powered by - wait for it - hydrogen fuel cells that are affordable and practical to manufacture.

So when Volkswagen invited us up there to check out its fuel cell Passats that were developed in conjunction with Tongji University in Shanghai, I jumped at the chance to assuage my disappointment with Marty McFly.

Quick science lesson on why fuel cells are so awesome: You can separate hydrogen from water (the H2 in H2O) by applying electricity in a process called electrolysis. If you power electrolysis with renewable energy like wind or solar, you don't even burn up resources to do it. Then, you take that H2 gas and slam it into a couple special membranes, producing electricity that can be saved in a battery, and the remaining hydrogen reacts with O2 gas from the air, and forms water. So your inputs are renewable energy and water, and your outputs are a highly efficient energy, some heat waste, and water. No greenhouse gases or anything nasty.

After some wining and dining and whiskeying the night before (oh, the sacrifices we make for you, dear Biters...), we got up in the morning and got to cruise around in the same vehicles that were used to shuttle around athletes at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. They looked just like regular Passats from the outside, and they were just as nice on the inside. (Disclaimer: Almost anything's nice when you drive an eleven-year-old mud-, coffee-, and just-about-everything-else-stained truck.)

The first thing you notice is that they sound waaaay different from regular cars: It sounds like you're on the tarmac at an airport, with a vacuum-like whirr, accompanied by periodic blasts of airy "pssht" sounds. But they're definitely quieter than your average car.

The drive itself seemed like any other drive, which is good news, although it wasn't totally without hiccups. Going from stop to start involved a bit of stuttering, and if you punch it too hard, you get a warning beep telling you you're putting the fuel cells in a stranglehold (performance enthusiasts take note: 0-60 in less than 15 seconds!).

So are they ready for production? Not so much. John Tillman, Volkswagen’s Advanced Powertrain Research Program manager, said regardless of the fact that the infrastructure simply isn't there (CA's only got six usable hydrogen fill-up stations, though more are on the way), fuel cell technology is probably a couple generations (technology-wise, not people-wise) away from being truly practical.

Right now one of the biggest challenges is creating batteries that can hold enough H2: The Li-ion batteries in our Passats were big enough to store enough power for about 180 miles of driving, much less useful for long trips than the ~300-mile range of conventional cars - especially when filling stations are few and far between.

But it's awesome to see that companies like VW, who view fuel cells as the pinnacle of automotive power even though Obama doesn't (at least for now), have some really smart dudes who are working to wean us off of fossil fuels. And even if there's still a long road ahead, we might as well start walking. Now if only they would get cracking on those hoverboards...

-Senior Editor Mike...off to wish he had three more days off...