According to news published by "Science Daily" on October 31, 2007, scientists from the University of Houston have come closer to solving one of the biggest problems of the modern auto industry - a possibility of mass production of affordable cars powered by fuel cells. With gasoline prices almost reaching $3 per gallon and taking into consideration negative environmental implications from the exhaust of conventionally-fuelled cars, switching to fuel cell gearing in auto industry would be a real technological breakthrough. The problem, however, is that existing fuel cell technologies are still very expensive and not efficient enough in order to be introduced into the wide-scale auto production.

The fuel cell technology, which runs on hydrogen and air, works by converting chemically stored energy into electric power without combustion, vibration, flame, or noise of any sort. The only by-product of fuel cell gearing is water, which makes this new technology one hundred per cent environmentally friendly.