Reuters says Toyota, Daimler-Benz, Ford, and now Nissan are Looking to Hydrogen

[Ein~+ein]

(Reuters) - Are electric cars running out of juice again?

This shift toward hydrogen and away from (H/B)EVs is a clear indication that for the long term, automakers:
a) don't believe any (B)EV battery breakthrough will render hybrids and ICEs obsolete (cost reduction, energy density, recharge time);
b) don't believe the numerous Free Energy claims by those such as Thane Heins with his self-charging, self-accelerating ReGen-X;
c) consider HEVs (hybrids) as merely transitional technology;
d) expect governments (to subsidize Big Oil?) to create the infrastructure just as they did with propane in the '80s.  Currently, big oil, has a stake in the heavily subsidized wind generating business  as this columnist argues and it's not very enviro- nor even business-friendly. 

This seems political.  Since it's likely they're not looking to any hydrogen-on-demand breakthrough where you just add water, such a strategy may have come from big oil hoping to remain viable.  Hydrogen is an energy 'currency'--a means of storing excess capacity and since storing and distributing hydrogen would need to be regulated, it would be the perfect way for the oil industry to remain viable and keep their filling stations.

Let me ask those following hydrogen as a fuel: Has anyone found a way to separate H20 using less energy than provided by the result?   To me, it's akin to gravity-based perpetual motion machines--even theoretically it doesn't sound feasible because of the cyclical nature of the separating and recombining of elements involved---it's not nuclear fusion.  Why would separating H from O involve less energy than in recombining them?