President Obama on Leno last night and spoke about hybrid vehicles.

Leno referenced the fact that Obama recently visited a plug-in hybrid factory. Obama spoke excitedly about the new hybrid vehicle technology and went on to say that the government would be investing billions into research and development in this field.

Here’ the transcript from this segment of President of Obama on Leno:

LENO: Now, you mentioned cars a minute ago. You went to the electric car, you went to look at some batteries today.

OBAMA: I did. It’s spectacular what is being down now with plug-in hybrids, where not only are you getting the hybrid technology, but now you can plug it in at home in your garage. And potentially we could see cars getting 150 miles to a gallon of gas.

And when you get home you could potentially sell the energy in your car back into the grid, back to your utility and get money.

So we’re going to be investing billions of dollars in research and development around these technologies. I know that you were mentioning you’ve got a hydrogen car –-

LENO: I’ve got the GM hydrogen car. That’s a whole new –

OBAMA: That’s a whole new level of technology. That’s what’s going to create the auto industry of the future. That’s where we’re going to win back manufacturing. But right now we’re behind.

These batteries are being made in Japan –- just like wind power is being made in Europe. We need to bring that here, and that’s part of what my budget and part of what our Recovery Act is all about.

James May of Top Gear recently traveled from the UK to LA, California to test out the Honda FCX Clarity in their latest episode. In case you have not heard of the FCX Clarity, it is an electric powered car with no batteries. Instead, the FCX generates it’s own electricity from hydrogen fuel cells.

I think that hydrogen fuel cell cars are a very good alternative to regular gasoline cars however I still believe fully electric vehicles are the way to go. If we can improve the charging time on the batteries it would be a much better route to go. With the price of hydrogen roughly the same as petrol, the powers at be would prefer to have us still heading to the pumps to fill up. This means we will still be at the whim of the Exxon’s of the world, jacking up prices as they please. Personally I’d rather wait for my fully electric car to charge up, for a fraction of the price.

This is why I was a little annoyed with May’s bashing of the electric powered car while so blindly promoting the hydrogen powered car. “When the clarity runs out of juice, you just pull into a hydrogen filling station.” Ah, what hydrogen filling station? I understand this infrastructure could be put in place if the industry took, but so could rapid electric charging stations.

“In America, hydrogen costs roughly the same as petrol, but unlike petrol it will never run out, because it is the most abundant element in the universe.” Ok, this one really got to me. First off, he contradicts himself by saying “hydrogen is usually stuck onto something else” and “is actually quite difficult to scrape off“. If it is stuck to something else and is difficult to separate then that means we are going to be using a lot of energy to create it and transport it; unlike electricity.

Let’s not forget how explosive hydrogen is as well. I would not want to be in an accident in a hydrogen fueled vehicle. You can check out the full video on the Honda FCX Clarity here and draw your own conclusion.

James May flies to Los Angeles to test the Honda FCX Clarity Hydrogen fueled vehicle. Is this the future for sustainable transportation? Possibly, but I don’t like the fact that he bashes the strictly electric vehicles. Watch the full video and comment on what your thoughts are.