Automobile companies working on home-based hydrogen refueling stations powered by solar energy

Why look around for a hydrogen refueling station for your hydrogen fuel cell car, when you could simply juice it up at home, powered by solar power, in your backyard! That’s a dream that we’d love to see come true, though it pretty much won’t enter global markets for a while. Well, companies like Honda, GM, Toyota, Mercedes and a few others are looking ahead, into the future, and are already coming up with long-term plans for the same. With help from companies like Shell, these automobile companies are busy chalking out home-based refueling stations using solar power that, if all goes well, could actually end up in our backyards in a few years time!

Currently, only one residential refueling station like this exists, at Honda’s Research and Development facility. It uses a 6 kW array of thin film solar cells, and is as large as a refrigerator. Using electricity from the solar cells, hydrogen and oxygen are split from water molecules using electrolysis, sending the much needed hydrogen to the car’s belly. Hopefully, things go as planned and these companies do have a prototype ready soon.
[Greenoptimistic]