With commercial hydrogen still at least 20 years away, hydrogen-powered vehicles are already influencing today's automobile market, say U.K. analysts CarbonFree. Their published report highlights examples of automobile manufacturers and energy companies looking to add a shade of green to existing brands with hydrogen vehicles.

According to the report, the automotive industry will reach its breaking point when oil companies are forced to resort to unconventional sources of oil, like shale or tar sands. The financial and environmental cost of this process will force the industry to look toward hydrogen and electric vehicles to open up the market to new entrants. Biofuels are also an option but, according to CarbonFree, will just "replace one form of energy insecurity with another."

Governments today have trouble limiting private motoring at a time when manufacturers spend billions promoting automobile ownership. CarbonFree believes governments will avoid direct confrontation with the automotive lobby and instead support schemes such as car clubs, exploiting the success of the social networking aspect of the Internet. However, the report points out that emotions and motoring must somehow be separated. Until they are, governments face similar challenges to the ones they encountered when dissuading people from smoking.