Great advance for the fuel-cell car, no explosive gas on board

Originally Posted by BrianG

My thoughts on this topic:

Wasn't there talk that the next generation of Prius would be all electric? Also, there was a new type of solar cell that had more output, was flexible, and was cheaper. Couldn't the body panels be impregnated with such cells to somewhat charge the batteries during the day? They wouldn't fully charge the battery, but could add quite a bit back in...

A while back I was looking at the whole splitting water to get Hydrogen method and I too read that the energy used to split the water was more than you get from the process; a net loss. However, I thought I read somewhere that there was a chemical that could be added to the water to facilitate the splitting process, something like a catalyst? Don't know if the net gain (if any) would still be worth anything...

If I had more disposable income, I'd like to build a "single person city conveyance vehicle". Basically, something like two mountain bikes (for better winter driving) welded together with a bubble in the middle for me. Make it electric of course with enough power to get to ~45mph in the city. Maybe use a 2-speed tranny similar to the two speed setups our R/Cs use (centrifugal clutch) to get a better balance of power and top speed. Make the battery pack/charger removable (briefcase?) to bring inside to charge when home or at the office. Would have to know what the minimum requirements for road driving is though - so probably would be limited there.

Not to ruin your pipe dream but:
if it has 4 wheels and goes over 30mph it needs to meet same crash test results as a car...
A trike on the other hand only has to meet motorcycle crash test ratings.

I too had heard of a chemical catalyst, and although I do not know the specifics (we wanted to make fuel cells, a different group worried about fuel storage/delivery) I am guessing the chemical is expensive and possibly carcinogenic (as many organics are).
I have read some on "solid storage" in which the hydrogen is stored in a metal honeycomb kind of tank (hydrogen goes in the pores of the metal, just like how oil is in the pores of bedrock). And it only takes a small amount of electrical shock to remove the hydrogen from the storage matrix, that way if the tank is pierced the hydrogen is still safe. The problem with this system is cost and weight as the metal storage matrix would add several hundred more pounds (these things aren't light).
Right now, the biggest problem with fuel cells is the cost of platinum. With current technologies there is between $1000 to $5000 in platinum in each fuel cell car. If they can increase efficiencies, or throughput of the fuel cell that will go down. Mind you that is just raw material cost, this stuff needs to be processed, coated, assembled, ect.