The outlook for hydrogen fuel-cell cars in California

California's Hydrogen Highway is behind schedule, and last week the state Air Resources Board relaxed the state's 2014 quota for hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.

Will we ever see a mass-produced, zero-emission car that runs on hydrogen?

At the annual meeting of the National Hydrogen Association in Sacramento on Wednesday, automakers said yes – but only if the network of hydrogen filling stations expands. And for that, they said, they need help from oil companies and the government.

Larry Burns, who since 1998 has headed Research & Development and Planning for General Motors Corp., discussed the road ahead for hydrogen.

Q: What do you think state and federal governments ought to be doing to develop hydrogen filling stations?

A: I think an important role that government can play is in the coordination of all this – helping set a pace, set a timeline.

Take for example what's going on with (the California Air Resources Board) right now. The expectation is 7,500 zero-emission vehicles in the 2012-2014 timeframe. That's a great objective to set.

Now what has to happen is … they've also got to have some expectation on the infrastructure. No one is going to win if the auto companies deliver those 7,500 vehicles and customers can't drive them because they can't get hydrogen.

I'm not saying that the energy industry is being obstinate or anything like that. It's just a matter of, they're asking themselves, "Well, you want us to build these stations – how do we know there's going to be cars there to use those stations?"

And we're saying, "We want to build these cars, how do we know the stations are going to be there?"

Maybe the government can help there.

We're at a critical juncture. We have to go from 100 (fuel-cell) vehicles in our case – that's how many we're building of the Chevrolet Equinox – and we've got to go to a scale of 1,000 for the next one. That's how you learn about technology.

You increase the number you intend to build and by doing that, real suppliers get involved with real manufacturing processes. You have 1,000 vehicles being driven on an ongoing basis. You get real statistics about the range of experiences customers are having with your product.

Q: Hydrogen technology has a lot of critics. What do you think is the best argument in its favor?

A: It's the only technology we know of that holds the promise to deliver family-sized vehicles that are fun to drive and nice to look at, that are safe, that are affordable, that do not use petroleum, that do not have any emissions, that can refuel in five to eight minutes, and that can go 300 miles between refuelings.

That is exactly the mission. To be able to create that kind of car for a customer.

The other thing I would say beyond that is that it's real. This is not a dream any longer.

Q: Whenever we print a story on hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, readers write to tell us battery electric vehicles make much more sense. Why is GM not developing an electric vehicle?

A: The batteries just aren't there.

Q: And you don't think that they will get there?

A: Not on the horizon that we see – if what you want to have are family-sized cars. Now, for very, very small vehicles, that are small two-passenger vehicles with great aerodynamics – maybe they can get there.

Let me give you a perspective on the battery. The battery we are developing for the Chevrolet Volt (a "plug-in hybrid" slated for launch in 2010 that combines a battery with a small gasoline engine) is the best battery known to mankind. That battery is the size of an offensive lineman. And when you plug it in at night for six hours you can go 40 miles off of it the next day. … Is that a solution?

… You know, in the late 1800s there were over 3,000 auto companies in the U.S. And there were people trying to do cars running on wood and coal and steam and batteries and everything else. Eventually, petroleum won out.

We're in that period right now, when you look at the range of technology we're working on. I'm not convinced that a single solution is going to emerge and dominate. I'm not sure that's the best thing to have happen. I'd rather have diversity.

Q: When do you think GM will begin to actually make money on fuel-cell vehicles?

A: We certainly think we can have a fuel-cell vehicle costing no more than an internal-combustion engine vehicle after we get about three generations of commercial development.

When could that happen? Well, depending on how things play out in the world, depending on the hydrogen infrastructure, you could be there by 2018 maybe. (By the third generation), you're making 100,000 vehicles. You've got to be pretty sure you've got a design that's going to make you some money by then.

We're not going to put our capital into it and take it to a high-volume solution unless we can make money. And we haven't discovered anything yet that says that can't be done.

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• Call The Bee's Jim Downing, (916) 321-1065.