The year is 2015, and you hop into your car powered by fuel cells.

When you open your hood, instead of the familiar internal combustion engine, the black rectangular fuel cell stacks look like computer hardware.

You stop at the nearest hydrogen fueling station to fill up, the morning air devoid of the sight or smell of exhaust.

A science fiction story? Not if Kettering University can help it. The Flint university is one of the national leaders in attempts to resolve the remaining technical barriers keeping hydrogen cars from being commercially viable.

"Kettering is a major player," said Jennifer Gangi of Fuel Cells 2000 in Washington, D.C., a leading nonprofit group in the fuel cell industry.

"That was my intention, to have Kettering at the forefront," said Etim Ubong, an associate professor of internal combustion engines at Kettering.

Unlike solar-powered or electric cars, which never found a large market, mass-produced hydrogen cars will become a reality within the next five to 15 years, industry leaders say.

And Kettering is part of the explosion in university research to discover how to reach that reality, said Patrick Serfass, a spokesman for the National Hydrogen Association.

"The universities now are very active with their research," Serfass said. "Everyone is trying to jump on the hydrogen wave."

A golf cart-like vehicle powered by fuel cell stacks, which replace the internal combustion engine, sits in the automotive laboratory at Kettering. The cart, a prototype for students to learn how fuel cells work, can operate for about two hours and reach speeds of about 35 mph. Students can take up to seven fuel cell classes and will be able to major in fuel cell engineering by 2005.

This year, Kettering landed a $1.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce to help build the planned 8,500-square-foot Fuel Cell Systems and Powertrain Integration Center. The university also is recruiting six to eight businesses to locate at a business incubator.

Those companies have yet to be announced.

Kettering professors and students will work with researchers in the business incubator trying to refine the fuel cells to the point that the cars have the mileage range of a gasoline-powered car and can be sold at a competitive price.

"That problem is quite close to being solved," Ubong said of the barriers that now prevent the cars from being sold at dealerships.

Those problems include:

Producing fuel cell stacks — the fuel source — still is more expensive than the cost of making internal combustion engines. The platinum needed in the fuel cells is keeping the cost high. But Ubong said researchers have substantially reduced the amount of platinum needed to operate the fuel cells, and he expects that trend to continue.

Because hydrogen is lighter than gasoline, it needs to be compressed, or the fuel storage tank will be too large. Early fuel cell cars had hydrogen tanks that took up almost the whole length of the car. Researchers, however, have figured out ways to compress the hydrogen into a smaller space.

The best models now can travel more than 200 miles without refueling. To be comparable to gasoline-powered cars, fuel cell cars need to go more than 300 miles without refueling.

Ubong said it will happen because it's similar to how researchers discovered ways to make tinier computer chips and cell phones. An infrastructure must be built for hydrogen fueling stations.

"People want to have many places to fuel their car, for it to be just as convenient as gas stations are now," Gangi said.

But will the infrastructure be in place by the time the cars are mass-produced? If it isn't, people might hold off on buying the hydrogen cars, believing they will be too inconvenient.

The market will help solve the infrastructure issue, Gangi said. When it becomes apparent hydrogen cars soon will be on the market, gas stations won't want to be left behind by not having hydrogen fueling stations, she said.

The market also is spurring the rapid pace toward the development of hydrogen cars. General Motors is the first automaker to set a goal of mass production by 2010.

About 20 automakers and several other countries — including Great Britain, Japan, Germany, Canada, Iceland and Australia — are accelerating research on the hydrogen cars.

The Japanese already have several prototype cars driving the country's streets.

"They're a lot ahead of us," said Gangi, referring to Japanese automakers Toyota and Honda. "This is a race. Every company wants to be the first car company that you can actually buy a hydrogen car from."