Tokyo, Dec 02: It sounds too good to be true: a car that runs on an inexhaustible power source and doesn't harm the environment. But that's exactly what two Japanese automakers put on the road on Monday, with the launch of the world's first fuel cell cars. Toyota Motor and Honda Motor are leasing a handful of the cars to the Japanese government and several public establishments in the United States in an experimental programme that marks the biggest step yet towards the mass marketing of fuel cell vehicles (FCVs).

The ultimate "green car", FCVs could be part of the solution to smog, global warming and other ecological problems that conventional cars help cause.
The technology, which was first used during the Apollo moon project in the 1960s, mixes hydrogen fuel and oxygen from air using an electrochemical process to produce the electricity that powers the car.
Far from harming the environment, its only by-products are heat and water -- water so pure the Apollo astronauts drank it.
Many of the world's biggest carmakers want to make FCVs available to the average consumer. If all goes as planned, FCVs may begin replacing gasoline-powered cars in the next decade. Bureau Report