Driving the Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell hydrogen-powered SUV is a study in normalcy. Other drivers won’t notice it. The driver and passengers won’t notice any difference when you’re under way. Acceleration to highway speeds is slower, but not unsafe. The driving range is about the same as an upgraded Tesla. Refueling takes 5-10 minutes, the same as a gasoline-engine car.

The challenges for Hyundai, Honda, Toyota, and others offering fuel cell vehicles is the shortage of refueling stations and the need for incentives to make the cost of the early vehicles palatable, as well as incentives to get hydrogen fueling stations built. Right now, gasoline stations outnumber public hydrogen fueling stations 120,000 to 13. There is no range anxiety as long as you live within 50 miles of Disneyland. Environmental benefits are similar to an electric vehicle, Hyundai says.

$500 a month for a conversation-piece SUV

The Hyundai deal is this: If you qualify, you can put $3,000 down, pay $499 a month for three years, then give the Tucson back. (No buy-out offered.) To sweeten the deal, Hyundai pays for the fuel. And that’s the catch: To qualify, you have to be conveniently close to a hydrogen fueling station, which pretty much means Orange County and Los Angeles, the only place Hyundai offers the Tucson Fuel Cell. The 13 hydrogen fueling stations are mostly in Southern California, according to the Department of Energy.

It’s actually less expensive to buy in California, where the state picks up the cost of the down payment and effectively helps out with the lease, which then comes to $450 a month.

How it works, how it drives

Hyundai modifies its current, second-generation Tucson compact SUV (2010-present). One bulletproof storage tank wrapped in carbon fiber is under the load floor, and a second is under the rear seat. The four-cylinder gasoline engine is replaced with 134-hp AC electric motor generating 221 pound-feet of torque. The vehicle weighs 4,150 pounds. There is a small battery to provide a little extra boost on acceleration, because the process of converting hydrogen to electricity isn’t instantaneous.

On the road, the loudest noise on my test drive in New York City is the slap of the tires against Manhattan’s winter-weary pavement and occasional whirring and clicking from the fuel cell plumbing. Starting up from a standstill, the Tucson is passably quick. Beyond 30 mph and trying to reach highway speeds, the acceleration tapers off. 0-60 mph takes an estimated 12 seconds, which would be on the slower side for a gas-engine car. If you’re merging onto the interstate, you’ll want to check distances carefully.

There’s almost nothing different about the cockpit other than a slightly modified instrument panel and center stack display. The Tucson Fuel Cell doesn’t have the attention-getting styling of the Toyota Mirai fuel-cell vehicle, although driving characteristics are similar: It’s a car, it’s quiet, you don’t notice anything different.

The Tucson Fuel Cell is rated at a 265-mile range by the EPA, which means your driving range is about 130 miles beyond the farthest fueling station near you. Go any farther and the only way to come back is on a flatbed.

The technology behind fuel cells

A fuel cell makes electricity from the reaction between hydrogen and oxygen in the air. The hydrogen atoms stored in the high-pressure tanks pass through a platinum-coated proton exchange membrane. The electrons are stripped out to become the electric power for the car. On the other side of the membranes, the hydrogen protons combine with the air to form water vapor, which passes through the tailpipe, along with heat. Some of the electricity charges a hybrid-like storage battery for added boost on acceleration.

Most fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV is the most common acronym) use pressured hydrogen gas at 5,000 or 10,000 psi. When BMW produced a small fleet of hydrogen vehicles, it used liquified hydrogen, and burned the hydrogen in the combustion engine. When the hydrogen ran out, the driver flipped a switch to go back to gasoline.

Hyundai has done more than 2 million miles of development testing. The tanks are bullet-proof, although as with other automakers there has been a discussion of whether than means .30-caliber or .50-caliber, bullet-proof or bullet-resistant. As if it makes a difference: Stray rounds entering the cockpit are going to make a mess of the occupants. The automakers’ point is that this is not the Hindenburg. Should the tank overheat, there’s a pressure relief valve. And unlike gasoline that sticks around as a puddle on the ground, hydrogen vents straight up.

Mixed opinions on hydrogen’s well-to-wheel efficiency

Hydrogen is abundant as a fuel source starting with its abundance in water (H2O). Getting hydrogen segregated takes work, and there’s active discussion about the so-called well-to-wheel emissions for a fuel source, meaning taking into account the cost and energy burned to get the energy extracted from mother earth, converted to its final form, transported to where you are, and then converted into energy and propulsion in the car. Hyundai and others with hydrogen fuel cell cars say it can be an extremely efficient process. Critics say there’s a difference between the best-case or future-projection efficiency and the current mainstream.

Hyundai says fuel cells using hydrogen from natural gas, or biogas from wastewater are most efficient (Hyundaid-created chart above) in terms of low greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) for vehicle fuels. According to 2013 studies on well-to-wheel greenhouse-gas emissions (GHG) by the Advanced Power and Energy Program at the University of California, Irvine, hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles have the lowest overall emission levels of all alternative fuel entries.

According to MIT Technology Review, there are significant back-end energy costs that make hydrogen an iffy proposition. As the headline says, “Forget Hydrogen Cars, and Buy a Hybrid.” Author Kevin Bullis says: “The only thing that comes out of the cars’ tailpipes is, indeed, water vapor, but the hydrogen they run on is mostly made from natural gas via a process that releases significant amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.”

Should you buy (actually, lease)?

You’re only eligible if you live in Southern California. The car is exclusive with only a few hundred for sale, but other than a little bit of special badging, it looks like several hundred thousand Tucsons roaming America’s highways. It’s not unique-looking the way a Nissan Leaf is, or a Chevrolet Volt, or a Tesla. For $450 a month, you’ve still got something special. You need to think of the Tucson as a second or third car: great for around-town runs, but not for vacation trips. You also shouldn’t think in terms of cost of ownership; you could get a Toyota Prius V with about the same cargo capacity for half as much on a lease.

The third-generation 2016 Hyundai Tucson is being introduced at the 2015 New York International Auto Show and goes on sale later this year. Will the Tucson Fuel Cell transfer to the new platform, given the small volume and high cost of modifying? Hyundai spokesman Derek Joyce says, “It’s too early to talk next generation.”