Ford's Edge HySeries offers glimpse of future

— -- En route to its unveiling at the Washington, D.C., auto show in late January, Ford's provocative Edge HySeries fuel-cell plug-in hybrid detoured to USA TODAY, where it got some serious hammering for part of a day.

Still, it's useful to wheel about in the Edge HySeries to sample the state-of-the-art in alternative-fuel vehicles. The marquee features are:

• It uses no petroleum-fueled power, so is pollution-free.

• It can be plugged into an ordinary household outlet to recharge. Generating that electricity creates some pollution, but less than a gasoline-power vehicle would, Ford says.

• Its on-board hydrogen fuel cell only recharges the battery pack. It doesn't drive the vehicle. The benefit is that the expensive and cumbersome fuel cell can be made less costly and tidier to package. The trade-off: The expensive lithium-ion battery pack has to be larger. But there's a net savings in weight and complexity, Ford says.

PHOTOS/AUDIO:Ford HySeries with Healey's comments

The HySeries prototype felt almost like a production machine behind the wheel — smooth, tight, quiet and well-finished.

SUBMIT QUESTIONS NOW:James Healey chats at 2 p.m. ET

Steering was unusually agreeable for a vehicle using electric-power steering, which is hard to tune just right.

Brakes were anywhere from ordinary to nose-dive sudden, depending on how high the regenerative braking was set. That's the system that taps the force of the brakes to recharge the battery. When it's on high, you hardly have to touch the brakes to slow.

The only gripe about function: The vehicle was sluggish. That's a result of two decisions:

• Allowing the prototype to lard on the pounds, including a second electric motor for all-wheel drive and various cosmetic items for the auto show.

• Tapping slightly less than two-thirds of the battery pack's power during this shakedown stage of testing.