After almost a decade of touting fuel cell technology as the ultimate replacement for the internal combustion engine, automakers are slowly starting to actually sell a few fuel-cell-powered vehicles, according to an Associated Press story by Ed Garsten. Honda Motor Corp. plans to make a very small, but undetermined, number of fuel cell vehicles available next year, according to Ben Knight, the company's vice president for automotive engineering. DaimlerChrysler AG is launching a program in Europe with 30 fuel cell buses in 10 cities, according to Dirk Walliser, one of the heads of the automaker's fuel cell project. Ford Motor Co. is sending five fuel cell vehicles to California this year for evaluation, said Bruce Kopf, director of Th!nk Technologies at Ford Motor Co. The automakers are staying with their long-held estimates that mass-produced, widely available fuel cell vehicles will not be possible until 2010 at the earliest, mainly due to cost, infrastructure and safety challenges, according to the Associated Press.
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