Dec 9 - McClatchy-Tribune Business News Formerly Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - John Nolan Dayton Daily News, Ohio

General Motors, Honda and other automakers are competing to be first on the mass-appeal market with fuel cell-powered cars that will use energy more efficiently than gasoline-powered vehicles and won't pollute.

With prototypes already in the field, automakers are planning to market the cars for wider distribution in the next few years. Mass production of the vehicles is projected to begin by 2010 or so, at a scale which the companies say could result in prices comparable to today's gasoline-powered vehicles.

GM, for instance, plans to build at least 100 fuel cell-powered Chevrolet Equinox sport utility vehicles to be available beginning in fall 2007. GM will build the four-passenger Equinox in Canada at its Oshawa, Ontario plant. The price hasn't been announced.

GM is working with Shell Oil Co., which will provide hydrogen fueling stations for the vehicles.

Toyota, Ford and DaimlerChrysler all have either fuel cell-powered cars, buses or delivery trucks on the roads for field tests in the United States and elsewhere.

The auto industry has practical obstacles to overcome. Fuel cells run on hydrogen and emit water vapor. There are few hydrogen fueling stations in the United States, and the majority of those are at centralized stations for government vehicle fleets.

Automakers are trying to address this by developing home fueling stations, powered by electricity, that would convert natural gas to hydrogen, or solar-powered units for the home that would extract hydrogen from water.

Special pump nozzles are required so that hydrogen, as a gas rather than liquid, can be safely pumped into a car. Hydrogen burns with a clear flame that could pose a safety hazard, so affordable and reliable sensors must be developed for use in the car and its garage to monitor for leaks, said Mike Martin of the Edison Materials Technology Center in Kettering, which funds development of fuel cells and other alternative energy technologies.

Martin said Honda made important progress with its latest refinement, a fuel cell that can generate 100 kilowatts and propel the car for as far as 350 miles on a tank of hydrogen. Honda displayed the four-passenger car, called an FCX Concept, in November at the Los Angeles Auto Show.