***Well at first they will get it from gasoline converted to hydrogen under the hood. Still using about half of it as it normally would. ***
Now that is a really poor idea, having a mini gasoline cracking plant under the hood. In addition to the hydrogen manufactured, there would be copious amounts of carbon dioxide (greenhouse gases) produced and even worse, lots of cracking byproducts that will have to be stored in a tank in the auto and/or eliminated from entering the atmosphere. So every time we fill up the tank with gas we unfill our reformer tank?
And it won't use half the gasoline unless the Laws of Thermodynamics are repealed. Who came up with that, an Exxon marketing exec?
Otto, diesel, and internal combustion engines produce mechanical power directly, and not via a fuel cellâs electric motor, which is more inefficient. They can be powered by alternative fuels such as biodiesel, but that is a topic of another discussion.
Internal combustion engines have a long history of engineering work: given the right design, they can process fuels very efficiently. Converting one form of energy (gasoline) into another (hydrogen) and then using a fuel cell to convert that to yet another form (electricity) and then to yet another form (mechanical energy) wastes energy and will never happen on a large scale.
***Eventually they will get it from other liquids like water, using electricity from hopefully from renewable sources like solar, wind etc. and it will be available at your local gas station***
Basic molecules like water dislike very much being broke apart into component elements. They dislike it so much that nature charges a very large energy fee to do so.
So instead of paying that fee, why not just use the electricity directly in electric/battery powered cards, instead of: producing electricity, from which hydrogen is very inefficiently produced, so that it can be shipping and stored, then pumped into a car, where it is converted back to electricity to run a motor.
It seems very unlikely that this will ever be done on a large scale, when an electric car can be directly plugged into the grid instead, in the comfort of your own home.
There are other sources of hydrogen you didn't mention like via coal gasification or garbage dump/methane production. These sources, like the others, are just a series of inefficient uses of the energy. They also produce CO2 as a byproduct.
Autos can be run very efficiently, for example, on the natural gas that coal gasification produces directly. Right now Honda is experimenting with NG powered Civics that can be filled up from home --- again, eliminating that pesky hydrogen filling station and storage and transfer infrastructure.
So it turns out that because hydrogen is not readily available on the earth in its elemental form, it is really only an energy STORAGE medium, and a rather inefficient one at that.
In my opinion Fuel Cells will never be deployed on a large scale, and GM, unfortunately, is riding the wrong horse.
