GM and other automakers have brought their prototypes to Vancouver for a major conference on hydrogen and fuel cells Monday and Tuesday, which is drawing delegates from more than 30 countries.

'I think people were a little bit naive then about how long it takes to get a technology into a car and then into the hands of a consumer.'—Noordin Nanji, Ballard Power Systems

The organizers staged a weekend rally to the mountain resort town of Whistler to demonstrate how far fuel-cell cars have come. But weren't Canadians — some of them anyway — supposed to be in their own zero-pollution hydrogen cars by now?

Even the technology's steadfast supporters now admit that promise, made in the 1990s, was a little optimistic.

"I think people were a little bit naive then about how long it takes to get a technology into a car and then into the hands of a consumer," said Noordin Nanji, vice-president and chief customer officer at Ballard Power Systems, the Vancouver-based fuel cell pioneer.

Early predictions pegged cars to hit market by 2005

Few technologies have suffered more from high hopes than fuel cells have.

"There was a lot of expectation about the passenger-car market and that was because Ford and DaimlerChrysler invested in Ballard," said John Tak, chief executive officer of Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Canada, a government-industry technology group.

When DaimlerChrysler cemented its alliance with Ballard in 1997, a top executive from the automaker predicted the first cars would be rolling out around 2005. But the obstacles to commercializing hydrogen fuel cells, especially for vehicles, have proven more formidable than their boosters foresaw.

Fuel cells use a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen to make electricity. When pure hydrogen is used, there are no pollutants or greenhouse gases — pure water and heat are the only byproducts.

Ballard is producing units for stationary-power uses, such as home electricity generation in Japan, and backup power for telecom centres.

But the only mobile applications so far are in transit buses deployed in experimental fleets around the world and for electric forklifts, where Tak said cost isn't as big a factor. Cars and trucks present major challenges in an era where even low-cost models are expected to perform flawlessly.

Fuel cell engineers seeking to match conventional car performance

Volume-produced fuel-cell vehicles will have to equal conventional vehicles in long-term durability, reliability, ease of operation, range and cost, said Todd Goldstein, an engineer at GM's fuel cell activities centre in Torrence, Calif.

"We need to have a vehicle that'll last 150,000 kilometres or more," he said.

Goldstein said GM is aiming for fuel-cell vehicles initially to carry a small price premium over conventional models the way hybrids do today.

Nanji attributes the initial optimism to the fact automakers' research and development spokespeople were doing the talking, not the product-development engineers who would have to turn their technology into marketable cars. That's changed as fuel cells loom larger in future products.

"So that's a real step forward for the industry in terms of being more realistic about what it's going to take," said Nanji.