Except they may have hit a snag in the fuel cell system they have been preferring to power their view of the future green automobile.

Fuel cells are very efficient at producing mileage – in fact they are about 3 to 4 times more efficient than a regular gas powered car engine – or put this another way, if we all switched to fuel cell powered cars we would drop carbon emissions by 70% overnight. Or in another way – we solve the carbon pollution crisis in one fell swoop.

The problem is that fuel cells use hydrogen as their energy source and this produces ultra low emissions such as water (created by burning the hydrogen with readily available oxygen in the air – H2O) – but where do you get all the hydrogen you are going to need, and we are going to need a lot!

The immediate answer is you get hydrogen from … oil and gas!

Hang on a sec – to power a car cleanly we still have to drill for oil and process it (producing carbon emissions in the process) to get the hydrogen which will then fuel a car that costs me more money to buy?

Why not simply drill the oil, take that and power the regular gas mobile I own and buy now?

The problem is neither approach will work – we are using finite natural resources which will be exhausted and as the supply dwindles, higher and higher gas prices will be the result until the only people who can afford to drive a gas powered car will be the super rich with an antique car collection.

The environment will not wait that long either.

The challenge the South Koreans are now trying to address, along with the rest of the green car R&D world is how to source cheap, clean hydrogen.

The concept was that the Oil giants, Shell, would pit the students against each-other in an opportunity for them to showcase their talents on the tracks. The aim of the task was to achieve most distance on lowest fuel level, with cars being registered into two categories. Prototype or Urban Concept.

The Cars then raced with either hydrogen fuel cells, solar power and plug-in batteries or internal combustion as the main energy source. Over the 10 mile course, drivers were forced to remain at 15mph for the duration. A vast range of different styles ad colours painted the grey tracks of Sepang, making a montage of space-age creation.

Though these cars may not necessarily be adequatley road-worthy, the ability that these students have shown may change the way in which we design and invisage our future vehicles.

The winners of the events were Team Luk Jao Mae Khlong Prapa from Thailand’s Dhurakil Pundit University.

These cars have come a long way since the first electric car race, which was held in Pau in 2005 and saw 12 state-of-the-art race one another in a Grand Prix style race. Luckily, though these newer and trendier Asian designs look more fun and space age, it is unlikely we will be driving something like this on our roads before 2015.

The New Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi i-Miev looks far more likely to be hitting our roads than these other electric vehicles.

Currently in this country, we have a scheme set up whereby you receive £5000 back from the Government for buying an Electric Car, which is apparently soon to be scrapped. Unfortunately this is a bit of a step backwards in terms of electrical progression, but with Councils planning on putting more power points in local areas and more big Car companies taking the initiative to invent cheaper ways of fuelling cars, perhaps the Government will re-assess where they stand with this newer policy.