Here’s an interesting Q&A in Wired.com with Larry Burns, General Motor’s vice-president of R&D and strategic planning. It’s no secret that GM has been the most vocal and persistent car manufacturer when it comes to plans for a mass-market hydrogen vehicle, but Burns makes a few interesting comments in this interview in response to critics of GM’s hydrogen promises. Among them:

On why hybrids aren’t the long-term answer: What long-term problem have we fixed with the miracle of a hybrid? If you woke up tomorrow and all 220 million cars and trucks in the United States had been hybridized to the degree that the Prius has — all getting 25 per cent better fuel economy — in six years we would be consuming the same amount of petroleum that we are right now.

On those who doubt GM’s hydrogen promises: The first question I’d like to ask them is, when was the last time you were in a state-of-the-art fuel cell-development laboratory? I work with a tremendous team of scientists and engineers who are creating that capability, and my confidence in our 2010 timetable grows every week.

On concerns that hydrogen production will still rely on carbon fuel: I don’t care whether the hydrogen comes from wind, geothermal, nuclear, solar, or fossil. What I care about is that each local economy plays to its strength. You get 5 per cent from here and 10 per cent from there, and suddenly you’ve created a transportation energy market with a number of pathways competing, as opposed to just a petroleum pathway.

You’ve got to give GM credit for not straying from its goal, no matter how unlikely it seems some times. I still haven’t ruled out the hydrogen fuel-cell car, but I do remain concerned about some of the developmental barriers that must still be overcome.

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