With gasoline prices setting records worldwide in 2008, and global demand unlikely to subside, most car manufacturers are hard at work developing alternative engines.  One possible alternative fuel that has always seemed promising for the distant future is hydrogen.  Today, however, one prominent auto executive said his company may be able to mass-produce hydrogen engines much more quickly than anyone had previously imagined - putting them on the road by 2013.

Mazda Europe CEO James Muir dropped the bomb in an interview with the U.K.'s AutoCar magazine.  Making it sound as though he was disappointed with the timetable, he said the company "will do the hydrogen rotary engine, but it won't be in production for at least five years."  That's still many years ahead of any other company's production schedule.  In fact, he said, "The company is already running 30 hydrogen-powered RX-8s capable of 200km [about 124 mile] range in conjunction with a Norwegian company, HyNor, as part of its development tests."

It makes sense that Mazda would be ahead of other automakers in the hydrogen race.  The company has made a rotary-engined sports car for more than 20 years - currently, its RX-8 is the only rotary-engined car sold in the United States.  Mazda has always produced the engines because, it claims, they offer a more smooth, even acceleration than traditional cylinder-based models.  But, "The nature of the rotary engine," Autoblog explains, "where the intake and combustion chambers are separate - makes the design well suited to the rapid burn characteristics of hydrogen." Traditional piston engines "can have issues with backfiring when fueled on H2."

So what's holding Mazda's hydrogen plans back? Muir told AutoCar "that sourcing and storing the hydrogen remains one of the biggest challenges, especially as Mazda is using it in gas rather than liquid form."  Before hydrogen cars, which emit only water vapor, can be mass-produced successfully, it has to be possible for motorists to refuel them easily.   "It's also possible," AutoCar says, "That Mazda's future hydrogen cars could be dual-fuel."  That would certainly address the problem of motorists who don't always have easy access to a hydrogen refueling station.

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