For people who have vested interest in clean green vehicle propulsion, You know that at this moment and for many years, Electric cars have been the go to technology. Tesla currently leading the charge, recently releasing their patents to the public. http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you
However for those who dont know, Two other technologies have always been in the background, superior to strait up electric cars bat hampered by patents and a lack of infrastructure. Both are based on Hydrogen as the fuel source. Hydrogen Fuel Cells, where a chemical reaction in a fuel cell produces electricity to power an electric engine and hydrogen combustion engines notable wankel rotary hydrogen combustion engines produced by Mazda. The issue with these two forms vehicle propulsion are they never got the support they needed. Some companies and countries have tried in the past but found it too hard to maintain. Notable the Taxi service in London had their vehicles fueled with hydrogen for a number of years. I do not know the current situation.
While many fear hydrogen to be unsafe (comparably safer when compared with gasoline) The two greatest issues have been the infrastructure not being available and Toyota holding a large number of patents that left hydrogen doomed to fail no matter how many hydrogen fuel cell vehicles Toyota produced. Today this changes.
CES 2015. Toyota has made the announcement they are releasing 5,680 patents on hydrogen fuel cell technology along side their new hydrogen fuel cell vehicle.
For the first time, Hydrogen Fuel Cells are no longer locked away behind patents. This does not mean that we will be seeing hydrogen vehicles on the roads everywhere tomorrow but it released the grip on the technology that held it underwater. Not only that but there are already a number of companies that support the use of hydrogen. Mazda, Toyota, Nissan, Boeing, Lange Aviation, Hice and even NASA produce or are working producing hydrogen based vehicles.
The future is bright. How long until hydrogen is the go to fuel? God knows but there is one thing to know. Hydrogen is not dead.