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LOS ANGELES — A report on fuel-cell vehicles commissioned by a coalition of government agencies, automakers and other companies concludes that bringing the low-polluting technology to market in California will require an expensive effort that probably won’t be profitable for at least a decade. 

But regulators, industry officials and environmentalists were heartened by the 258-page report, which they called their first comprehensive blueprint for moving fuel cells out of the laboratory and onto the streets. 

“It’s a revolutionary technology. Clearly if it’s going to replace ... the internal combustion engine, we’re certainly going to have many challenges,” said Alan C. Lloyd, chairman of the California Air Resources Board. “But I don’t see any show-stoppers.” 

A fuel cell is a battery powered by the energy generated when oxygen and hydrogen combine. When pure hydrogen is used, the only byproduct is water. 

Only a scattering of fuel-cell vehicles has been produced so far, but state air board rules will require some public transit bus fleets to use fuel-cell buses in demonstration projects by 2003. 

The report released Tuesday by the California Fuel Cell Partnership — which includes the air board, the U.S. Department of Energy, most major automakers and other governments and companies — examined what it would take to put 40,000 new fuel-cell vehicles on the road every year by 2010 or later. 

If needed improvements in fuel-cell technology are developed, “all other challenges to (fuel-cell vehicle) commercialization can be overcome, albeit in some cases with high cost, difficulty and risk requiring public support,” according to the report, written by Bevilacqua-Knight Inc., a Hayward, Calif., consulting group. 

ompanies building the estimated 500 fueling stations needed to support 40,000 California fuel-cell vehicles a year would go about 10 years before the operations started making money, and it would take several years after that to recoup infrastructure investments, said study author Bob Knight. 

“It’s going to be difficult to convince fuel providers that this is a good thing to do,” Knight said. “Government is likely to have to play a bigger role to contribute to this transition ... than they’ve ever done before.” 

Government funds and incentives would be needed to help reduce the financial risks automakers and fuel providers would assume by producing fuel-cell vehicles and facilities, the report found. 

The report examined all the ways the hydrogen needed for fuel cells could be produced, including electrolysis, natural gas, gasoline, ethanol and methanol. All methods need more research before they’re inexpensive enough to be used on a large scale, and all have unique pros and cons. 

Electrolysis is potentially the cleanest way to make hydrogen — depending on how the needed electricity is produced. But setting up 500 fueling stations to dispense hydrogen gas would cost an estimated $235 million. 

Infrastructure would be cheaper for fuel-cell vehicles that used gasoline, ethanol or methanol, but the cars themselves would be more expensive because they would need not-yet-perfected equipment to convert the fuel into hydrogen. 

Even if fuel-cell vehicles ultimately cost about the same as their internal-combustion counterparts, it will be a challenge to convince consumers to try something new, Knight said. 

“It’s not completely clear why a person would want a fuel-cell vehicle instead of a conventional vehicle. It’s very different in a way that could make buyers uncertain, so it’s going to have to have some very appealing aspects to it,” Knight said. 

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On the Net: 

www.fuelcellpartnership.org