This auto program on the BBC highlights the GM Highwire which also features interchangeable bodies. Worth a watch. The hosts of the show seem a bit, uh, credulous though seeming to buy anything told them. Still this car is cool. Right now there is only one of these and it cost $5 million.
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Top Gear is a good show – but they managed to avoid all the important questions:
1. How fast can it go?
2. How far can it go (on a full tank of H)
3. Where do we get all the electricity (to convert sea water into Hydrogen)?
If we all want to switch to hydrogen fuel cell cars we need more electricity generating stations than ALL the currently produced electricity IN THE WORLD. Or, about 5,000 nuclear power stations.
We’ve got 20 years to figure it out.
Those are good questions for a production car, but not a concept car. I’m just glad to see it moving and working correctly. Just take it for what it is, a $5 million experiment to see how/if this stuff will ever work.
£5 million, not $5 million.
Surely there’s a more cheap/energy efficient way of producing hidrogen than electrolise…maybe some genetic/biotech can figure out producing such technology.
The Stig RULEZ, nuff said
If you think this video is interesting, look for the Top Gear team trying to destroy a Toyota truck. If we all buy the trucks, it looks like we will never ever need another vehicle!!
#6 yeah….so we’ll be drilling for oil and use the hydrogen, and then what shall we do with the oil? Oh, I’ve got it, use it to generate electricity we can use to generate more hydrogen… Duhh!
Do you really think it’s enough? And the main point for developing a H2 car is to cut the pollution and not be dependant on fossil fuel, and, more important for the western world, not to be dependant on OPEC countries. Pity though, these countries already have your leaders in their back pocket. One would expect that a project with all these advantages would be in the governments high to do list. So why isn’t?
#8 links please…
oh never mind…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRZzkrLSXj0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0Fzrsf4G2I&mode=related&search=
Notice all the toyota vehicles that give US a run for their money…
@JoaoPT
What to do with the oil… hmm… how about not burning it, but make things out of it?
There are many ways to generate electricity that can be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. There are the traditional ways; nuclear, hydroelectric dams, wind power, solar power. And there are the relatively newer ways, such as wave and tide power. If there’s a will, there’s a way.
Try watching “Who Killed the Electric car” and find out why we will never see this car.
One more time – Hydrogen is not an energy source – it is an energy storage medium that must be produced from an energy source. As an energy storage medium, it has real concerns with portability and safety.
The only commercially viable source of energy on a scale to create enough hydrogen for US vehicle needs is nuclear. And if the French can do nuclear power safely and economically, we must at least be able to follow them. Effectively the technology to produce hydrogen from nuclear exists today.
The big problem with hydrogen is marketing. The ghosts of Hindenberg and Challenger are sure to follow hydrogen as a portable energy strorage medium. No matter that gasoline does the same thing – The first accident followed by explosive hydrogen conflagration with charred bodies will undo all the advertising anyone can buy. And like air crashes, every single one will make the evening news in color – or black and white soot if that is all that is left.
So don’t make hydrogen portable with the vehicle.
The big desirable here is an efficient, compact electric motor driven vehicle, driven by some safe energy storage medium. Right now, batteries seem to be the safest storage alternative and not anything that carries hydrogen.
I can wait for interchangable bodies and fly by wire. Right now, enegry that does not fund our enemies is the most important part. If the government wants to get us off the gasoline habit, then they can incent very low cost electric power to home rechargers and low cost urban recharging stations as an alternative. The demand for economical transportation would then drive rapid market delivery of electric vehicles ASAP.
The urban charging stations could be hydrogen powered with appropriate safegards (perhaps underground?) with remote nuclear power creating the hydrogen (government subsidized) and feeding it to existing (already underground) gas lines. similarly Hydrogen can also power local electric power generation – avoiding the losses of long range electric transmission lines.
This is not so different from what he have today, consumers can adjust if cost incentives are provicded and most important – it can be marketed.
12,
Ummm, what have you been SMOKING???
Simple way to make Hydrogen, is Aluminum and Lye/HCL…
Hydrogen is the most abundant gas on this planet…
1 reason the Germans HATED the US…We were making Helium, and THEY want it, but WE wouldnt give them any.
Who would pay 5 million squid for a car? Where would you even keep 5,000,000 squids?
Freaking cool…. I want one…
btw, when H2 burns it burns straight up because it is ‘lighter than air’
when gas burns you end up in a pool of ‘liquid fire’…
seems like H2 could be safer?
Hello,
This is off topic but [editor: pls read comments guide]
Thanks and always a big fan of Dvorak,
Vlad Akilov
http://theblogjoint.com
This is way cool; one reason why I say to hell with conservation, lets burn it all up and then we can go on to bigger and better things, like this really brilliant piece of engineering. Actually, if we wanted to, we could keep the drive by wire works on the steering wheel concept, concede the need for an internal combustion stinkpot and stick it in the rear, although that would eliminate the changeable bodies feature. People would buy these things.
18, Very true…
But how about crops that grow FASTER then sugar cane, and can be grown in more locations….
HEMP and sunflowers make GREAT growers. But they WONT let us grow hemp. The by products are feed, cloth and Oils… We could get 3-6 growths of hemp in each year, and the Crop FEEDS the soil insted of TAKING nutrients out. And it can be grown ALMOSt anyplace in the US. we could cover moutains with it, and have crops that DONT take up Farm land.
Im sorry, but for ALL the old laws they WISH to protect, they REALLy make some stupid NEW ones.
the Gas companies were TOLD in the 70’s to find alternatives. Its 30 years later, and THEY WONT DO IT… they HAd to find a propritary system JUSt to give us Hydrogen…WHY?? It was proven that Hydrogen tanks are MORE protective then GAS tanks, and that the GAS goes STRIAGHT UP when released, and Hydrogen HAS to be mixed with AIR to explode…other wise it just Burns.
Dvorak Top Gear is by far the best Car programme ever.
http://forum.finalgear.com
Of course, we could all switch and use Ethonol RIGHT NOW. But nobody seems to have noticed this. I’m shocked nobody is talking about the green fueled car that Henry Ford made 70 years ago.
Ran on Hemp Oil. It was slow, but if you got stuck behind it… pretty soon you didn’t really care…. man.
The car contains it’s own fuel cell which seperates the hydrogen from the water. This technology could replace powerstations.
Does anyone know how much energy it takes to generate enough hydrogen to run a car? Any figures from experiments? If one needs more energy to generate the hydrogen, than the output of the engine, then it’s a waste – if less energy needed, then it’s great. Any figures anyone?
AS stated above: Hydrogen is a medium for storing energy. Thus, it will always take more energy to create and store energy in the form of hydrogen than will be produced from the hydrogen itself.
The law of conservation applies. The goal is to create a ‘fuel’ from something other than oil, and this is simply one way.
output will never equal or exceed input until a way is found to circumvent the laws of thermodynamics.