It's been a rough couple of years for cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells. As the drums beat louder for electric cars--the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, Nissan's upcoming EV, and more--the hydrogen chorus is waning.

But perhaps there's hope. And perhaps it's as close as your nearest urinal. Or, more politely, your local sewage treatment facility.

Let us explain. One of the problems with hydrogen is that while it's prolific in nature, hydrogen molecules aren't

Volkswagen will unveil its first electric car by 2013, said CEO Martin Winterkorn on Friday. Winterkorn espouses the electric car movement, but has previously mentioned that he thinks it will take 15 to 20 years before EVs comprise a significant fraction of the market.

That won't stop VW from forging ahead with plans to control 1.0 to 1.5% of the global EV market by 2020. "We are going to use our New Small Family line to offer our first electric vehicle in 2013. And in 10 years at the latest we want to

The future of plug-in electric cars boils down to their adoption by drivers. As we have reported, car buyers are leery about EVs and concerned about charging their vehicles in public areas.  A public charging infrastructure is virtually non-existent in the U.S. at this point.

Automakers are working with utility companies, local governments, and municipalities to develop such an infrastructure in a timely manner.

Lack of infrastructure has not dissuaded automakers from

By now it's a tradition: We celebrate the last day of the month by running down the most popular posts on GreenCarReports.com. For June, only a single Top Five post from May survived--and last month's # 1 Ferrari hybrid piece didn't show up at all.

This month, it's all about electric cars:

# 1: First Ride: 2011 Coda Sedan Electric Car. We were one of the very few publications to ride in the Coda prototype, which was being shown mostly to

The International Electrotechnical Commission, abbreviated as the IEC, is working hard to establish a standard for the smart electrical grid with the capability of communicating with other vehicles.

Previously we had reported about the standard the IEC is working on for the charging cable, but they are also concurrently working on a standardized smart grid system.  The standardization is necessary to keep millions of vehicles from all recharging during peak usage hours.

The

Late Thursday the US Senate passed the $106 billion war appropriations bill which had previously been passed by the House of Representatives.  Included in the bill was a $1 billion provision called "cash for clunkers."  This money is earmarked to give to US consumers who purchase new fuel-efficient cars within the next few months.

The program is designed to both stimulate new car sales as well as encourage the adoption of high fuel efficiency vehicles including but not limited to gas-electrics

Renault has recently announced that they will unveil three new electric vehicles at the Frankfurt Motor Show this year.

One of the three vehicles will be a concept EV set for a possible release date in 2012.  The other two vehicles have been mentioned before and they include the production ready EV version of the Megane saloon and the Kangoo.  Both are scheduled to go on sale in 2011.

Renault is not releasing many details surrounding

Last week, we wrote that the smash success of the Mitsubishi i-MiEV is leading the company to plan five additional electric cars.

We've now driven electric-car prototypes from a number of automakers: a 2011 Chevrolet Volt mule, the 2012 Nissan EV prototype, the 2012 Ford Focus EV prototype, and the disappointing Mini E. And we've ridden in the 2011 Coda Sedan prototype.

But the only actual production EV we've driven was the 2010