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"But eventually it's hoped hydrogen will be made from water through electrolysis, which currently takes more energy than it produces."

It may be a clean fuel, but somewhere there has to be a reactor, a coal or oil fueled plant or some other energy source to produce it. Those are all unacceptable to most environmentalists. They just move the pollution somewhere else.

Liquid hydrogen is a very explosive fuel, unless it is stored in some type of matrix.

It is also not a high energy density fuel. It will take a lot of it to replace petroleum based fuels.

Don't hold your breath waiting for this technology to be commercially available for the masses.

I've spent a lot of time designing control systems for natural gas engines, and they are extremely clean, but suffer from low energy density fuel, and a lack of natural gas "filling station".

They are primarily purchased for UPS, airport shuttles, and city buses.

I really don't think hydrogen is a realistic option, but I sure would like to present my middle finger to the Arab oil cartel!

Maybe the passenger car of the future will be a much lighter, much slower vehicle requiring considerably less power than fossil fuels can provide. If cars shed 1,000 pounds and have a max speed of 35-40 mph, alternate lighter fuels might be good enough. I bet about 80-90% of most people's driving is done at less than 40 m.p.h.

I really don't think hydrogen is a realistic option, but I sure would like to present my middle finger to the Arab oil cartel!

Using existing fission nuclear power technology to produce electricity and hudrogen, we could do this within a relatively short period of time, probably less than 10 years.

That we do not do so is due to political/legal/PR issues, not technical ones.