Jack Nicholson Hocks Hydrogen Cars in the '70s

Written by Hank Green

For those of you who think that the BMW Hydrogen 7 is a new idea, someone has dredged up a video of a similar car from 1978 being showed off by Jack Nicholson. The "news" report seems laughable now, but it's a good lesson for a world that see,s to think "breakthroughs" happen every day. Feeding hydrogen into an internal combustion engine is and old idea and, it turned out, a bad idea. And while almost all car companies (aside from BMW) are focusing on much more efficient hydrogen fuel cell cars, decades of development still haven't brought us a mass-market car. We're closer than ever, of course, with the Honda FXC Clarity and the Hydrogen Chevy Equinox both on the road in California. But Hydrogen cars might need decades of development before they can operate coast to coast. And, by that time, I hope we've come up with another, better solution. Original here