Fuel Cell Car Letter to the Merc

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The San Francisco chapter of the electric vehicle association decided not to support the hydrogen highway plan being promoted by Schwarzenegger because the electricity needed to make hydrogen from water would be four times what would be needed to power an electric car the same distance down the road. We also didn't trust that automakers would be able to produce a fuel cell car anytime soon and see their support of the hydrogen highway as a boondoggle. When the San Jose Mercury did a cover story on May 23rd, they did not really explain how inefficient hydrogen production is and there was no mention of the dangers of hydrogen. We wrote letters. Two were printed on May 28th including mine. I said hydrogen was 12 times more likely to ignite than gasoline, but actually it's 20 times. I was rushing.