Struggling Canadian Firm, Ballard Power Systems, recently announced a further 100 job losses to cut costs. The company has spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to develop fuel cells for commercial vehicles. Now it seems Ballard is desperate to get off the R&D track, go commercial and that's what these job cuts were about. Earlier this year, Ballard made a bold committment to offering commercially viable fuel cell technology for hydrogen-powered vehicles by 2010.

Ballard said a 2010 demonstration will show that its technology has the following characteristics: 5,000 hours of lifetime; an ability to start at -30 degrees C; volumetric power density of 2,500 watts net per litre; and a cost of $30 US per net kilowatt at a volume of 500,000 units. 

This looks like a tall order to me. But if Ballard can really pull this off, they will be very big.