Hmm, platinum can be easily replaced by nitrogen doped vertical carbon nanotubes. Carbon is common, unlike platinum, so it
should be significantly cheaper. Lets say that it would cost
$125 billion, that is significantly less.

The infrastructure cost estimate doesn’t take into account the use
of hydrogen containing compounds to transport hydrogen safely
and efficiently, so that’s a second reason why this $200 billion
estimate is just plain wrong.

A $16k battery is not practical compared to the cost of a
hydrogen fuel cell stack using carbon nanotube electrodes. Hydrogen can be distributed as magnesium hydride slurry produced using renewable energy or nuclear energy.
Hydrogen can be produced using bacteria instead of
electrolysis and there are other methods of getting
hydrogen as well such as cooking horse manure to
release methane gas which can be reformed. If the
auto manufacturers choose to store hydrogen on
vehicles as magnesium hydride slurry, the current fueling infrastructure for diesel and gasoline will adapt easily and
cheaply.

Methods to safely handle hydrogen are well known.

The technology to lower the cost of fuel cells enough to make
mass production of them profitable exists now. It is inappropriate
to use the cost of platinum to predict the cost of fuel cells. In
prototype vehicles, of course you use platinum. In mass
production, you use carbon nanotubes which perform better
than platinum and cost a lot less.

Hydrogen is the only zero emission option that can propel a
vehicle for 300-500 miles affordably.

2 tons of batteries to get that kind of range is not acceptable.

Battery technology has majorly improved, but I think battery
technology will lose the race to fuel cell technology.

There is a greater danger of explosion from a 16kW Lithium
ION battery than a 10k PSI hydrogen tank.

The $200 billion dollar figure is simply wrong. It is too high.
Not only that, $200 billion would be a small price to pay to
end the nation’s dependence on foreign oil now.

There are no technological barriers left to prevent mass production
of fuel cell cars, only political ones.

10 minute quick charge for 100 mile range, in Oahu, a couple of YEARS ago with lead acid batteries.
http://www.greencar.com/features/features39/

10 minute quick charge for ~200 mile range (they claim 250 but I don’t think they will get that judging by Tesla’s results) using altairnano batteries:
http://www.gizmag.com/britains-lightning-gt-electric-supercar/9059/

More details (warning pdf download):
http://www.epa.gov/oppt/nano/p2docs/casestudy3_house.pdf

The charger/draw seems to be a bigger problem than the batteries just by virtue of you drawing so much energy in such a short amount of time putting a huge load on whatever electricity source you are using.

So there are batteries capable of quick charge. You said you went to an advanced battery workshop; it probably was talking about more conventional li-ions. The conventional li-ions/nimhs actually can’t charge as fast as lead acids b/c of thermal reasons; ie. the Tesla Roadster’s batteries can charge to full in 1 hour for 220 miles as an absolute max, which is slower than the lead acids in the previous example. There’s also the consideration that a lot of these batteries can charge to 80% a lot quicker than to 100%; ie. the iMIEV usually taking 7 hours to charge with 200V but can charge 80% in 30 minutes w/ a quick charger even given the more normal li-ion batteries (different from the Nano Titanate batteries).

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/03/21/new-york-2008-autobloggreen-drives-the-mitsubishi-i-miev-w-vid/

I can’t say much on low-platinum fuel cells since I haven’t really looked into it, but I don’t imagine they are close at all judging from your comment.

I want to know what will fuel a 747 or an Air Force bomber if not some sort of fossil fuel.