Hamburg, Germany - As hydrogen infrastructure improves, fuel-cell cars are poised to enter the automotive mainstream.
And two Norwegians - calling themselves the Viking and the Scientist - have shown just how close that day is with an amazing endurance drive in a Hyundai ix35 Fuel Cell.
At the dawn of motoring, more than a century ago, motorists planning a long journey often had to send fuel on ahead by rail or horse-drawn carriage; now, of course, there are gas stations everywhere.
In much the same way, sports scientist Arnt-Goran Hartvig and physicist Marius Bornstein set themselves the challenge of proving that a fuel-cell car could hack it in the real world.
TAKING IT TO THE STREETS
Their first effort, in June 2004, was an economy run that stretched their ix35's quoted tank range of 600km to a feather-footed 700km without refuelling.
Then they 'took it to the streets' by driving the same car from 2260km Oslo in Norway to Monaco on the south coast of France, refuelling only at existing commercial hydrogen stations along the way.
But those two runs drew the same criticism as economy runs everywhere - that the Hyundai was being driven unrealistically slowly for optimum fuel-efficiency.
So then they decided to drive the 300-odd kilometres from the Vatenfall hydrogen station at HafenCity in Hamburg to the Shell hydrogen station in Sachsendamm, Berlin, as many times as they could in 24 hours.
In the event, as you'll see in the video, they managed to cover 2383km in a real-world mix of urban traffic and freeway cruising - an average speed of just over 99km/h.