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

[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.