Lately we have been hearing quite a bit about thinking green, buying vehicles that are better for the environment. Remember when everyone was so excited about hydrogen fuel cells and saying that they are the future of the automobile industry.

It seems like hybrid cars (cars that run on both gasoline and electricity) are the latest rage and hydrogen fuel cells have fallen into the background. Hydrogen fueled vehicles seemed so promising, so why did they loose the spot light?

Like any new idea, the hydrogen-fueled vehicles have many problems, but many of these problems are not an issue with a hybrid car.

GM, Honda, Nissan and even Toyota all have hydrogen-powered cars in the making, but the price of the cars is a big issue. Honda leased a few of its FCX’s to a select few, these cars cost about a million dollars each.

Much of this cost comes from the splitting of hydrogen. This requires a catalyst and best catalyst so far is platinum.

The process of turning hydrogen into usable electricity is very inefficient and up to 75% of the produced energy is lost. Seeing that the fuel used most of the time to make the hydrogen usable is natural gas, many say that it is no better than using gasoline.

Because of these problems and many others it is more likely that hybrid cars will take the position of hydrogen powered cars.