Manufacturers hope to see hydrogen-powered cars in common use within the next eight years.

The irony—driving an environmentally friendly automobile through the heart of one of the most wind-ravaged areas of Canada—was inescapable.

I was at the wheel of General Motors’ Hydro ­Gen 3 fuel-cell car and could see, firsthand, the shellacking Mother Nature laid on Stanley Park this past winter. After a series of wind storms over 100 kilometres per hour, it’s a shadow of its former self. Giant uprooted Douglas firs, shattered treetrunks, and fallen branches litter the side of the road, and half of the famed seawall is gone. Vancouver’s crown jewel looks like it’s being logged by someone who doesn’t know what he’s doing.

My little tour around the park was part of the 2007 Hydrogen and Fuel Cells International Trade Show and Conference held April 29 to May 2. Participants took part in an overnight “rally” from downtown Vancouver to Whistler—about 240 kilometres, round trip, driving hydrogen-propelled vehicles. However, the media wasn’t invited to participate in that part of the conference, and the Stanley Park ride was a kind of consolation prize. “We can’t stop you from following us to Whistler,” whispered a well-meaning P.R. type, “but the problem is, they’re worried about some of the cars running out of fuel along the way.”

Good point. A busted-down fuel-cell car with a tanker truck alongside isn’t exactly the best photo op for this burgeoning technology, which is still in its infancy and has a long way to go before it enters the mainstream.

But the beat goes on and California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s dream of a “hydrogen highway”, which will see more vehicles running on hydrogen and increased used of fuel-cell technology, has its mile zero in Vancouver, apparently.

Back to the HydroGen 3, which is essentially a European Opel Zafira with a fuel-cell stack and electric motor. It’s also part of GM’s “Project Driveway”, the company’s plan to see hydrogen-powered cars in common use within the next seven or eight years.

With electrical energy provided by a 200-cell fuel stack manufactured in-house by GM Europe, the HydroGen 3 utilizes a three-phase electric motor that develops some 60 kilowatts of power, which is enough to give it a purported 160 kilometre-per-hour top speed and around-town performance comparable to that of a four-cylinder compact sedan. It can take both compressed and liquid hydrogen. Compressed hydrogen gives a driving range of 170 kilometres; liquid yields some 400 kilometres. General Motors has built 18 of them, and they’re in use in cities including Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and Berlin.

“This particular car is actually used by the U.S. Postal Service in Irvine, California,” explains GM fuel-cell engineer Todd Goldstein. “We took it out of the fleet to bring it up here, and it’ll go back when we’re done.”

Goldstein, who works out of GM’s Advanced Technical Center, in Torrance, California, is realistic about hydrogen as an alternate fuel. “It’ll be at least 2015 before you can walk into a dealership and buy a hydrogen-powered car. We know that it has to have performance comparable with a conventional I.C.E. [internal combustion engine] vehicle and must have at least a 150,000-kilometre drivability life.”

Not to mention other minor considerations such as cold-weather use and infrastructure. Hydrogen isn’t exactly available at your local gas station, and Goldstein acknowledges that that side of the equation is still a big question mark. “We are working with Shell Oil and BC Hydro out here,” he adds, “and there are currently 25 refuelling stations up and running in the U.S.”

Still, GM seems to be committed to hydrogen fuel. The next-generation HydroGen 4, which will be a Chevy Equinox utilizing the same basic drivetrain, is set to start production by the fall of 2007. It will be manufactured in Oshawa, Ontario, and GM will initially build 100 of them, offered on “short term” leases to selected customers. “In the fullness of time, we expect initial buyers of these types of vehicles to be those people with hybrid-vehicle experience,” Goldstein adds.

Behind the wheel, the HydroGen 3 feels like a detuned four-cylinder compact. For unexplained safety reasons, GM engineers have built in an automatic parking brake that locks up the rear wheels every time you bring the vehicle to a full stop. When you take your foot off the brake and hit the gas, it unlocks and off you go, but it takes a bit of getting used to. It also takes the onboard computer a few minutes to boot up before you can get underway, and there is no gear-shift lever, just a pair of oversize directional buttons located on the floor where it would normally be.

Otherwise, the HydroGen 3 has the usual accessories, such as power windows, surprisingly efficient heat and ventilation, and air conditioning. It’s not going to win any stoplight derbies, and reserve power is in very short supply, but if it weren’t for the whine emanating from the electrical-induction system, you’d hardly know you were driving a non–I.C.E. vehicle.

Neither would Mother Nature, it seems. Even when we try to make nice with her, there’s no guarantee she’ll return the favour.