It’s amazing what they’re doing with engine covers these days.

This rather interesting and intriguing automobile powerplant that appears to be a turbocharged V8 engine is really a hydrogen fuel cell developed by Intelligent Energy. According to the news release, it’s designed for “high-performance fuel cell electric vehicles.”

How much power can it deliver? The company rates the new fuel cell at 100 kilowatts, or about 134 horsepower.

A fuel cell, of course, mixes hydrogen and oxygen to produce an electric current along with heat and water. Depending on the fuel-cell construction, the fuel can be pure hydrogen or some type of hydrogen-rich compound like natural gas. One of the appealing scenarios of a fuel-cell vehicle is that while it sits in the garage it can generate electricity for a house that is fed with natural gas, but that reality is in the distant future.

A patented evaporative-cooling system that eliminates the need for conventional liquid-cooled channels between cells is key to imposing power density numbers of 3.5kW per liter (volumetric) and 3.0 kW per kilogram (gravimetric).

The fuel cell will be available to automotive customers through licensing programs and joint-development agreements. Basically, the package allows an automaker with none or very little fuel-cell experience to adapt the technology more quickly to a vehicle design.

“The concept, design, technology elements and IP package are all in place to enable the platform to be applied to customer vehicle programs today,” says James Batchelor, managing director of the Motive Division at Intelligent Energy.

You have to admit it’s a rather handsome appearing package. Even though we don’t have a clue as to what the duties are of all the turbo-like peripherals hanging on the outside of the main power unit, they sure look like more than 134 horsepower.