Electric cars sure get a lot of press these days – you can't open a news site without reading about the Nissan Leaf or the Chevy Volt – so it's nice to see a bit of news about that other promising green vehicle, the hydrogen fuel cell car.

Toyota's hydrogen fuel cell technology is slowly starting to crawl into public consciousness and catching the attention of environmentally-active consumers. Toyota, in partnership with Shell, has taken a big step towards making fuel cell vehicles more practical by opening the first pipeline-fed hydrogen station in the country, reports Yahoo! News today.

The station, located in Torrance, California, is situated directly across from Toyota's sales and marketing headquarters and will fuel all of the company's local hydrogen test vehicles, as well as fleet vehicles from all around Los Angeles. The fueling depot will function as a model for other possible hydrogen outlets across the country and is designed to demonstrate how easy a line-fed station can be operated. Eliminating the need for costly, messy tankers, line-fed stations get their fuel directly from hydrogen processing locations.

Toyota has been actively testing fuel cell vehicles since 2002, and while the technology is extremely promising, the cost of producing — and hence, buying — hydrogen vehicles prohibits mass-market appeal. The company anticipates the introduction of consumer-focused fuel cell lineups in 2015.

There are several dozen prototype or production cars and buses that use fuel cell technology. Automakers that are pursuing hydrogen fuel cell cars (or have already in introduced them) include Toyota, Honda (News - Alert), GM, Peugeot, Audi, BMW, Chrysler, Daimler, Fiat and Lotus cars. Many cities in the world today have public transport systems that rely on fuel-cell powered buses, as well.