Advocates of alternative-fuel vehicles would seem a unified bunch of tree huggers, bound by their determination to wean the world's automobiles off fossil fuels. But there's a red-hot fight brewing in the green-car world.
Proponents of the two most hyped technologies -- hydrogen fuel cells and plug-in electric hybrids -- are squared off in an increasingly bitter fight. They are vying for publicity, manufacturer acceptance, favorable regulation and, especially, funding for research and investment in infrastructure and marketing.
The battle has been simmering for several years, but with the technologies coming tantalizingly close to commercial reality, the stakes are higher than ever. Whoever gets the upper hand now could determine what kind of cars we all drive in the future.
The camps are competing for potentially more than $2 billion in federal funding over the next five years and are lobbying for regulations that could have a profound effect on which type of car winds up on dealer lots.
"It's just unfortunate that there has to be so much infighting," said Patricia Monahan of the clean vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, which calls itself "agnostic" on which technology holds more promise. "Sometimes it seems almost personal."
Fundamentally, the disagreement is over which technology is more viable.
Fuel-cell vehicles use hydrogen to create electricity, which powers the car. The only emission is water. But critics (some of whom call the technology "fool cells") contend that producing hydrogen requires three to four times more energy than the hydrogen later generates in the fuel cell.
They also say that the cars are too expensive and that hydrogen molecules can't be easily contained without energy-consuming compressors or maintaining them in liquid form at extremely low temperatures.
Plug-in hybrids also are powered by electricity, but they draw their juice from batteries that are charged by plugging the car into the electrical grid. In addition, they typically carry a small gasoline- or diesel-powered generator that can charge the batteries and extend the range of the vehicle.
Plug-in critics say battery technology isn't advanced enough for long-range driving, and they doubt that the current electric infrastructure is robust enough to effectively charge a nation's entire fleet at once. Plus, they note, much of the electricity that comes to our wall outlets is generated by burning fossil fuels.
