For years, General Motors has been touting its plans to have a fuel-cell vehicle available for public consumption by 2010. However, despite the automaker's troubled financial times, it needs to push such a vehicle to full development in as early as 18 months (2008).

This according to GM's head of research and planning, Larry Burns, in a recent Financial Times article.

The reason? Competition. "Hydrogen-powered fuel cells have been seized on by governments and most carmakers as the long-term solution to pollution, global warming and high oil prices as they emit only water and the fuel can be made from renewable sources," says Financial Times. Virtually every major automaker is accelerating its fuel-cell development programs: DaimlerChrysler and Toyota plan to debut their vehicles by 2012 and 2015; Honda currently is testing its FCV, yesterday noted the Autoblog.

Says Burns: "We are not the only company driving hard to be first to market with fuel-cell vehicles. You can safely conclude that if we are going to be on market [in time] then a decision needs to be made in the next year to 18 months."

Typically an all-new vehicle costs at least $1 billion to develop, while a derivative of an existing model would cost $500 million or more. The new technology of fuel cells is likely to push the cost up significantly. Burns declined to say how much would need to be invested to produce a saleable car, but allocating significant money is likely to be a tough decision for GM.

The company lost $10.6 billion last year and faces heavy demands for cash to help Delphi, its bankrupt former components arm, as well as to close a dozen facilities and cut 30,000 jobs in North America. (The automaker will cut its engineering staff in Michigan for a second time later this month "as it continues to shift some work to emerging markets such as Brazil, where GM is hiring engineers to develop the next-generation small pickup." The job cuts, following last week's forced layoffs of hundreds of GM white-collar workers, will be the last round for the engineering department. This news was announced today.)

But Burns believes there is sufficient funding in GM's existing development budget for a new vehicle, but the automaker has yet to make a decision in which direction to go with its fuel-cell development, i.e., no decision has been made on whether fuel cells would be provided instead of an engine in an existing car or an entirely new model would be produced.

GM has long argued that fuel cells have the potential to transform the industry, replacing complex engines and gearboxes with a fuel cell and electric motors containing far fewer parts. The troubled automaker delayed some hybrid and fuel-cell projects last year when heavy losses forced a cut in the planned research budget; the programs were protected from cancellation, however, unlike other research.