For a couple of family cars that sell in comparatively modest volumes, Nissan’s Leaf and Chevrolet’s Volt have made an outsized splash into the automotive landscape.

Now four years since the first production Leaf was delivered Dec. 11, 2010 in the U.S., and the first Volt was sold days later on Dec. 15, the two pioneer plug-in cars have inspired a new global sub-industry.

Of course the Leaf developed in Japan is all-electric and the Volt from the U.S. is “extended-range electric” with gas generator backup, thus they’re dissimilar technological approaches. But despite an informal sales “race” begun 48 months ago between the East meets West matchup with trading places along the way, in a broader sense they’re on the same team.

While the more insular fans of these cars and the companies behind them may emphasize differences, each is a first-generation attempt toward weaning away from dependence upon petroleum and seriously curbing emissions.

Highlights

Both the Leaf and Volt were launched in staged U.S. rollouts. Initial deliveries of pre-ordered Leafs went to Arizona, California, Hawaii, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Washington, while pre-ordered Volts were first sold in Washington D.C., the New York City region, California, and Austin, Texas.

Former GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, was inspired (goaded) by the Tesla Roadster after the 2006 Detroit Auto Show, and by 2007 GM had a concept car on display.

Various markets followed and nationwide distribution was in place by November 2011 for Chevrolet and by March 2012 for Nissan.

Markets in other countries were also being carved out during this period and following. The Leaf has always enjoyed a strong footing in Japan, while the Volt does not get such honors. The Leaf now also is more firmly rooted in other markets around the world.

SEE ALSO: 2013 Nissan Leaf Review – Video

General Motors also built and exported from its Detroit-Hamtramck plant the right- and left-hand-drive Opel/Vauxhall Amperas and Holden Volts and Euro market Chevy Volts. Early reports were these were well received, but Chevrolet has since all but pulled out of Europe, and GM is discontinuing the Opel/Vauxhall variants after lackluster sales. Holden appears to be holding on.

Although the Volt accrued what may be the longest list of awards and accolades, the also-awarded Leaf escaped much of the rancor in the U.S. the Volt endured on account of General Motors which had just been bankrupted and federally rescued.

2011 Nissan Leaf.

During the last presidential election campaign, not a week would go by without some op-ed piece attempting to throw mud on GM’s “Obamamobile” named after the incumbent president who purportedly “picks losers,” said his opponents.

Also, during 2011 the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration crash tested a Volt, then instead of “depowering” its high-voltage battery just as they would have drained a conventional car’s gas tank, they left it charged and parked it. The car which had been slammed into a pole sideways reminded them of their error when coolant from its broken coolant lines crystallized, bridged electrically live terminals, and started a small fire a couple weeks later.

What do you want to bet GM avoids any politicians being officially photographed with its gen-2 Volt?

But the error was blamed on the Volt, and in November 2011, NHTSA opened a probe. GM then proceeded to bend over backwards offering to buy the car back from “concerned” owners, and worked with the feds to create a steel piece to add security for such an impact.

Nissan was blissfully untouched by such PR nightmares that sympathetic observers said were overblown and unfair. The Leaf does not even have liquid cooling like the Volt does, but its battery has not proven as durable, and did suffer its own heat-related problems.

The Leaf’s issues happened in first-wave rollout states, especially Arizona, California, and Texas where Leaf owners in 2012 were reporting premature battery capacity degradation. These cases were a small percent of total sales, but affected Leaf owners saw range drop from 73 miles rated to 60, 50, and as low as the 40-some mile mark.

In 2013 the refreshed, but still gen-one Leaf became capable of 84 miles rated range with full battery charge.

Not good, and Nissan did change its chemistry slightly for 2013, while not adding liquid cooling, and it added a pro-rated warranty provision. Since then, we’ve heard less on this, but that Nissan went without liquid cooling was criticized back in 2010 as a rush-to-market measure.

To be sure, there have been teething problems with the gen-one cars, more than these cited, but the Volt and Leaf were meanwhile garnering serious fans. Both are more than cars, they represent a cause.

SEE ALSO: 2013 Chevrolet Volt Review – Video

And, despite issues real and perceived, the Leaf and Volt have proven effective at meeting their goals. The Leaf uses no gasoline, and since 2013 range went to 84 miles while intraday charging can extend this for those who need it. The Volt meanwhile has been used like an EV with gas generator, and early adopters have accrued 700 million electric miles since launch, and on average go over 900 miles between fill-ups having saved 36.5 million gallons of gas.

Environmentally minded supporters as well as energy hawks, and those from all political stripes have seen their potential. The cheerleader factor has thus been alive and well for web-based forums, owner clubs, and other organizations developed around these cars or otherwise supportive of alternative energy transportation.

This all happened while the actual sales of these cars was barely a blip on a chart next to many internal combustion passenger vehicles that sell many times the numbers.

Chevy Volt being side-impact tested at 20 mph.

Initial 2011 sales under 10,000 for either car saw the Leaf win that first full year, while its sales growth stagnated for the next year as the Volt handily more-than doubled its sales in spite of all the politicized and irrational rancor over barely understood “technology.”

SEE ALSO: 13 Key Questions and Answers about Nissan Leaf Battery Pack and Ordering

Nor is this “barely understood” descriptor an example of editorializing. Rather, it’s been documented consumers have largely not noticed or failed to wrap their minds around how these cars work – thus how they may benefit from them, so sales have not been helped.

After a two-year initial gauntlet in the U.S., both automakers cut prices enough to make them look less like expensive science projects, especially since they are eligible for $7,500 federal tax credits, state and local subsidies in cases, and solo HOV lane access in California.

Both cars had suffered under initially higher starting prices, and for 2013 a new S trim level of the Leaf was $6,000 cheaper than the former SV, and GM upgraded and Volt’s battery from 16.0-kwh to 16.5, increasing efficiency and all-electric range by 3 miles as well. GM cut the Volt’s price by $5,000 last August, eight months after Nissan.

Nissan has creatively drummed up publicity for the Leaf, including a staged quiet race through streets at night in Europe.

But not helping things has been a marketing deficit, especially for the Volt, which was declared a “niche” product this year by GM, and marketed mainly at tech fairs and in California, the largest plug-in market by far.

SEE ALSO: 2015 Volt Gets Larger 17.1-kWh Battery

After initially higher sales goals had been cut back in 2011, and following negative PR in year two, one might surmise chastened GM had internally conceded the Volt was not a home run, and put its tail between its legs – much to the chagrin of supporters. Others have speculated an internal change of heart as the early “Volt Team” which developed the car dissipated, jumped ship, or moved to other positions.

Of the two companies, Nissan – led by bullish CEO Carlos Ghosn, has been the more assertive in continuing to market the Leaf. Nissan was also helped in 2013 when it began battery and car production in Smyrna Tenn., – along with Sunderland UK, and Oppama Japan – in an effort to get localize assembly closer to distribution points.

Year by year. U.S. sales tally as follows: 2010 – Leaf: 19, Volt: 326; 2011 – Leaf: 9,674; Volt: 7,671; 2012 – Leaf: 9,819; Volt: 23,461; 2013 – Leaf: 22,610; Volt 23,094; 2014 through November: Leaf: 27,098; Volt: 17,315.

Today

All this year Nissan has been closing a U.S. sales gap, though with the Volt’s 71,867 U.S. sales since launch, the Volt still holds a diminishing lead over the Leaf’s 69,220 through November. The Volt has however long-since lost the global race with 87,085 total Volt and Volt/Ampera sales compared to the Leaf’s 150,000-plus.

But in just one month from now, GM will reveal its 2016 generation two Volt that fans are hoping will breath new life into the program. That car may have seating for five, better efficiency and e-range, and enthusiasts also hope for all the trouble, GM will market the car nationwide like it means it, and not price it above the $35,000 mark of gen one.

Will tables turn when the new Volt is released next summer and Leaf is still hanging in there?

The Leaf meanwhile has largely gotten a pass on being viewed as aging goods, or so it might appear. Also true is Nissan keeps advertising in more markets and its lower net price with incentives and cheap $200-300 leases have given it the sales edge against the lame duck Volt.

Actually, the Leaf may soon look lamer as Nissan has not announced a replacement, although Ghosn says a double-range battery is in the offing.

Even so, the two cars have inspired a market of followers. To date, they still stand heads above as relative grandfathers. No other mainstream priced EV comes close to the Leaf’s U.S. sales, and no other plug-in hybrid offers near the unique Volt’s electric range.

But competition is pending in a yet-small but growing market. There are now eight more plug-in hybrids sold in the U.S. and 12 more battery electric vehicles besides the Volt and Leaf. Of the two segments, BEVs had a take rate of 0.48 percent of the 15.5-million annual U.S. passenger vehicle market last month, while PHEVs comprised 0.28 percent.

SEE ALSO: Aging Chevy Volt Awarded 2014 Electric/Hybrid Best Buy

There is much room to grow, and cheap gas at the moment isn’t helping. But the underlying need to curb emissions and cut petroleum dependence remains, so more plug-in cars will be following thanks in no small part to the Volt and the Leaf.

Before they came along the plug-in market was next to zero and by September U.S. plug-in sales had crossed 250,000 and by October they were globally more than 600,000.

Electrical engineer Siva Rajendran is solving two big problems with one good idea. By starting a company that uses discarded batteries from electric cars to power schools in India, Rajendran wants to keep electric batteries out of landfills while simultaneously providing Indian school children with the electricity they need to learn.

According to a story published in Forbes, Rajendran started Totus Power two years ago and is currently trying to raise $40,000 through an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to fund production. So far he has raised $10,517.

Rajendran worked for an electric car company before founding Totus Power where he tried to solve the problem of recycling electric car batteries. Rajendran told Forbes that since electric car batteries are reduced to only 70 percent of their original strength after about five years, millions of potentially useful batteries are thrown out every year.

Eventually, Rajendran also became aware of rampant brownouts in Indian schools. After speaking with a friend who was trying to improve education for Indian children, Rajendran learned that even when these children had access to the technological tools they needed to learn, the subpar electrical infrastructure in India left them without electricity much of the day. Soon Rajendran realized that the two problems might have a mutually beneficial solution.

Rajendran has succeeded in obtaining some funding to create a portable power source using electric vehicle batteries that is strong enough to power 20 tablets and a classroom projector for 20 hours. He received $40,000 from StartUp Chile to create a prototype, and now he needs money to create battery management boards.

Rajendran told Forbes that after two years of hard work all of the “key pieces are in place,” the only missing piece is more funding to keep the mission-based venture moving forward.

Forbes

Critics of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have said they have no business case; at best their proponents are defying odds, and at worst they’re on a misbegotten errand – but that hasn’t stopped numerous automakers from getting deeply involved.

While several automakers have first-generation plug-in cars and are looking toward new and evolved products, no fewer than 24 mainstream nameplates have built at least one fuel cell development vehicle, if not an evolving series of developmental or production cars.

An early pre-production Hyundai Tucson ix FCEV.

Basically, automakers are trying everything to see what pays off with no fewer than eight deep-pocketed players having said they are planning passenger FCVs between now and decade’s end. However, only three FCVs are presently being sold or pending sale in the U.S. whereas there are a dozen battery electric cars, and nine plug-in hybrids. This said, there is a sizable undercurrent of interest and money being spent to push fuel cell cars to viability. Also not hurting things is California is offering nine zero emission vehicle credits per car versus no more than four for the largest battery equipped Tesla Model S. And governments and industry stakeholders are posturing in what may be a race between alternative technologies now with plug-ins leading by a nose.

Boxes Checked

Automakers, such as General Motors, like that certain “boxes” have been “checked” for criteria needed on the way to making FCVs mainstream suitable.

They are zero emission, have been tested for safety, offer quick refueling, durability competitive with internal combustion cars, and range also on par.

Actress Diane Kruger spray washes a Mercedes B-Class F-CELL.

Fuel cell electric cars today generally employ a fuel cell stack that mixes hydrogen with air to give off electrons for electric propulsion. The hydrogen is typically gaseous, stored in high pressure tank(s), and system components are borrowed from hybrid/electric cars – including the batteries – thus FCVs are typically a form of hybrid with gas engine deleted.

SEE ALSO: Toyota Preparing For ‘The Next 100 Years’ With Fuel Cell Vehicles

Fuel cell tech is also scalable and flexible; not solely aimed at automotive transportation. For example, Honda uses a stationary fuel cell stack at its Torrance, Calif. headquarters for electric power, and BMW uses fuel cells in its forklifts. Other applications include the power source for watercraft, buses, limos, trucks, tractors, and for space exploration as well.

The allure is surely there, but costs remain prohibitive, infrastructure is almost nil, and other challenges exist besides. Following are automakers working to change that:

Production Cars

Honda

The Japanese innovator that was selling clean and green cars long before the EPA regs got serious and Detroit was pushing heavy iron has had its FCX Clarity fuel cell vehicle for lease in the U.S., Japan and in Europe.

It’s been leased in Southern California since 2010 for $600 per month including fuel because regulators have not established a metered price – and still haven’t – for hydrogen.

Early promises of infrastructure by California authorities have led to stalled or sideways growth, and some months may go by where only a couple units are delivered. It’s next to no market, but Honda is collecting data. In a large sense it is a public science project for the next generation, but it is a bona fide production car.

Next up, Honda is working toward a five-passenger Jetsonesque follow-up to be ready by fiscal 2015 for 2016 sales.

Assuming success, in years ahead Honda’s Acura division might also have FCVs.

Hyundai

Hyundai has launched its $499 leased Tucson SUV in Southern California as well – as this is where all the refueling stations are and the state credits ZEVs as meeting regulations. Hyundai has also released the car in Europe and South Korea.

The vehicle was just launched last year and this, but has been a gleam in its maker’s eye since 2005’s LA auto show. As is the case with all these brands of FCVs, Hyundai has road tested it in all conditions, and developed efficiencies while reducing production costs.

U.S. sales are not precisely known, as Hyundai lumps the FCV with the gas-powered Tucson in monthly reporting.

Toyota

The Mirai probably needs little introduction, as we’ve had lots of news on this from the maker of the Prius.

The four-passenger sedan will start in the U.S. at $57,500 and hope is federal subsidies of as much as $8,000 will be renewed after they expire next year to add to $5,000 from California.

Sales in the home market where Toyota itself receives significant governmental assistance, begin Monday. Europe is due to follow in September 2015, and U.S. not long after next year.

SEE ALSO: 2016 Toyota Mirai FCV First Drive – Video

The plan is to slowly push ahead, follow infrastructure to market, spend the money and time and be patient. Eventually it would be not unlikely to expect Lexus branded FCVs, and meanwhile Toyota is well underway on two other FCVs though we know little about these.

Collaborations

Platinum-requiring fuel cell stacks have been expensive, and to date that fact plus lack of infrastructure are what is keeping back automakers from coming to market who otherwise could.

To share costs and intellectual property, automakers who’ve at other times worked independently have teamed up and have issued forward-looking statements promising products.

Daimler, Ford, Nissan

In January 2013 a pact was agreed upon by three major automotive players to pool talent, resources and intellectual property to make the “world’s first” viable FCV by 2017.

Actually, each wants its own uniquely branded model but they say they’ll save costs by utilizing common system design.

Here’s where cynics start to mutter something about vaporware, or hype, or overpromising and under delivering.

Nissan Terra FCEV. “FCEVs are the obvious next step to complement today’s battery electric vehicles as our industry embraces more sustainable transportation,” says the maker of the Leaf. “Our FCEVs make use of the lithium-ion batteries and high-power electric systems refined in our EV development, as well as the control systems from our hybrid vehicles and the high-pressure gas storage technologies from our compressed natural gas vehicles (CNG Vs).”

True enough these companies have not delivered much news, and there aren’t that many shopping days till 2017 remaining, but while we have yet to hear a lot of progress, these are multi-billion dollar efforts.

Whether they are late to market – as Daimler itself has been – may be a possibility. Predicting when future tech will get here is about like BEV fans talking about when lithium-air batteries will be ready.

But jaundiced views aside, just like next-gen batteries for plug-in cars, hydrogen powered Mercedes, Fords, Lincolns, Nissans and Infinitis may be less a matter of if, and only a question of when?

BMW and Toyota

Toyota is floating its own enterprise, and just like each of these collaborators in this article, BMW has also worked independently on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

Together now they have signed more than one agreement and very assertively state with all corporate pride that fuel cells are a part of the alternative energy future.

BMW is getting more press these days for its i-Series and its i3 has quickly ascended to third place in monthly U.S. sales among bettery electric cars, but BMW just like government regulators, subscribe to the “all of the above” approach.

“TMC and the BMW Group share the same strategic vision of future sustainable mobility,” said Norbert Reithofer, chairman of the Board of Management of BMW AG.

For good measure, TMC and BMW also plan to develop beyond-lithium-ion battery tech. So, for all the people disgruntled at Toyota, it aims to have a lithium-air battery with energy density greatly exceeding that of current lithium-ion batteries.

SEE ALSO: BMW Stops Talking to GM about Fuel Cells, May Begin With Toyota

This Toyota is doing besides other work on batteries. But, as for FCVs, the collaborators are sharing technologies to jointly develop a fuel cell vehicle system, including fuel cell stack and system, hydrogen tank, motor and battery. Target date is 2020, so stay tuned!

General Motors and Honda

Here we have the world’s number one FCV patent holder (GM) sharing knowledge and development work with the number two patent holder (Honda). Together they have over 1,200 patents and aim not to let them all sit on a shelf collecting dust.

According to Dan Flores of GM communications, GM sees great potential in hydrogen, and has been on the ground floor with a running hydrogen fuel cell van back in 1966, not to mention progressive development work through the end of last millennium into this, up until today.

This 2007 Chevy Equinox FCV has crossed 100,000 miles. GM has now gotten its platinum down to under 10 grams per fuel cell stack, and has otherwise seriously whittled costs as it works to further do so.

The company in 2007 also built 119 Equinox-based FCVs which have accrued 3 million miles. Some have been taken out of service, some have crashed off the road, some are still in development engineers hands.

Other GM test fleets and work on classified projects with the U.S. military are also underway. All its FCV work has been consolidated at its powertrain development facility in Pontiac, Mich., where it also works on battery powered vehicles.

1966! This beauty pre-dates the Apollo mission.

In short, GM is not asleep at the hydrogen fuel cell wheel, and timeframe here too is around 2020 though GM has made no production vehicle announcements like Honda has.

Since 2002 Honda has been at FCV development, and as mentioned above it is now forging ahead with its second-generation follow-up to the FCX Clarity. Honda may be able to accelerate its work because it has free access to all of GM’s intellectual property and the will to use it ASAP.

Others

The collaborators mentioned above have built multiple fuel cell prototypes and a comprehensive listing of all they’ve done is beyond this survey article’s scope.

Briefly, companies which have also built at least one FCV prototype include Chrysler, Jeep Suzuki, Mitsubishi, Subaru, Mazda, Kia, Volkswagen, Audi, Peugeot, Renault, Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Tata, and Morgan.

At least Volkswagen with its HyMotion FCV and its Audi division with its innovative plug-in hybrid version of the A7 FCV say they are essentially ready for production and looking to the market.

True enough, today there is negligible refueling, high costs, and questionable well-to-wheel analyses to ponder, but the two-dozen hydrogen-FCV-developing nameplates are of course for-profit companies.

Not all are prepared to go to market even if there were a hydrogen station on every corner because costs are still upside down. But that will change, say at least eight major manufacturers which in turn have several subdivisions.

Collectively they’ve spent untold sums, some began work on fuel cells before battery electrified efforts, and a lot is now tied up in the quest for the hydrogen highway.