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Greg Bensinger
Bloomberg News

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Ford Motor Co., the second-biggest U.S. automaker, said it may take at least 20 years before hydrogen-powered cars become widely available because obtaining the fuel is so costly and difficult.

"I have not seen a viable, affordable plan to convert an economy to hydrogen," Greg Frenette, Ford's lead engineer on the technology, said in an interview in East Haddam, Connecticut. "It could well take until 2030."

That's more than twice as long as the estimate from Honda Motor Co., which also is working on so-called fuel-cell autos that run on compressed hydrogen. Ford and Nissan Motor Co. are among automakers developing vehicles powered by alternatives to gasoline as surging prices spur buyers to choose smaller cars.

Hydrogen now costs as much as $10 for the equivalent of a gallon (3.8 liters), Brian Johnston, Nissan senior project engineer for electric and fuel-cell vehicles, said in an interview. In July, gasoline climbed to a record $4.11 a gallon, and is almost 30 percent more expensive than a year ago.

Honda estimates that within five years, its fuel-cell vehicles could be competitive with conventional autos in terms of range and speed, though "still expensive," Masaaki Kato, president of the automaker's research unit, said last month. Mass production may be possible within 10 years, Honda says.

At Ford, "we're in it for the long-term future, not because we think there's a near-term commercial opportunity," said Frenette, who spoke at a forum on engine technology hosted by Consumer Reports.

The automaker's research effort is unfolding against a backdrop of plunging U.S. sales, with last month's 35 per cent decline the worst drop among the top five automakers. Ford's sport-utility vehicles, pickups and vans, which made up almost two-thirds of purchases, plummeted 40 per cent.

Ford fell 30 cents, or 6.9 per cent, to $4.05, a 24-year low, at 4:02 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have dropped 40 per cent this year.

Fuel cells would help wean automakers from their dependence on gasoline engines. The cells create electricity in a chemical process that combines hydrogen and oxygen, emitting water vapor instead of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.

Still, Ford hasn't said what it may cost to buy, operate or produce a fuel-cell vehicle. Honda, the second-biggest Japanese carmaker, estimated three years ago that building a single version of its previous generation of fuel-cell cars cost more than $1 million.

Even Ford's timetable may be "a little ambitious," given the cost of making tanks for hydrogen, said K.G. Duleep, managing director of consulting firm Energy & Environmental Analysis Inc. With so many unanswered questions about fuel cells, other technologies may yet come to the fore, he added.

"If someone can make an electric vehicle with reasonable range, that may kill fuel cells," Duleep said in an interview from Arlington, Virginia.

Honda is leasing fuel-cell sedans to drivers in Los Angeles, while General Motors Corp., the biggest U.S. automaker, is testing roughly 100 of the vehicles in three U.S. cities with regular consumers. Ford, based in Dearborn, Michigan, has 30 of them on the road across the nation.

Today there are roughly 70 hydrogen stations in the U.S., almost half of which are in California, according to Web site fuelcells.org. That compares with about 140,000 retail gasoline filling stations, said Glen Falk, retail pricing manager for the Oil Price Information Service, based in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

GM is working with local governments to install hydrogen filling stations, said Dan O'Connell, director of fuel-cell commercialization for the Detroit-based automaker. He didn't disclose specific targets.

"Putting a hydrogen station in is not as difficult as it was even three years ago,"' he said in an interview. "An infrastructure is doable."

GM has a 2010 target to design a fuel-cell vehicle that "could be cost competitive" once it enters high-volume production, said Larry Burns, vice president for research and development, said in an interview in Stanford, California.