General Motors has alluded to the strong possibility that hydrogen powered fuel cell vehicles will be on the road in the USA for real around 2020.

According to Tom Krisher (associated press)

Larry Burns, vice president of research and development, offered the prediction this week as GM announced it has moved 500 fuel-cell engineers and scientists from the laboratory side of the company into the chain of command that actually produces cars.

Burns said he’s not yet willing to say exactly when hydrogen vehicles will be mass-produced, but he said it should happen before 2020, the year many experts have predicted.

“I sure would be disappointed if we weren’t there” before 2020, he said Wednesday at his office in GM’s sprawling technical center campus in the Detroit suburb of Warren.

GM’s organizational change, announced Friday, shows the company is confident enough in its research to take the step toward making the cars, Burns said.

“We’ve passed another milestone where we have come far enough in the development of this technology to start preparing for real production,” Burns said. “That’s a very significant milestone, in our judgment.”

The article cites obstacles such as lack of refuelling stations and storage capacity of hydrogen tanks as the main barriers to widespread adoption of the hydrogen fuel cell technology into the mainstream.

The move of the specialists into the production division is thought to be more than symbolic since a similar shift occurred, when it’s hybrid vehicles were in development. There are now 5 actual production hybrid vehicles available.