General Motors is now 1 million miles into its fuel cell experiment and company officials say having everyday people drive a test fleet of pollution-free cars has convinced them they are on the right track.
The automaker on Friday said it passed the 1 million-miles-driven mark in its fuel cell Chevrolet Equinox vehicles, with about 5,000 people rotating in and out of more than 100 cars over the past 25 months.
“They’ll tell you that after the first week, they pretty much forget it’s a fuel cell car, which indicates to us that we have accomplished our goal of making the fuel cell transparent to the consumer,” said Daniel O’Connell, director of fuel cell commercialization at GM’s research and development offices in Honeoye Falls, near Rochester, N.Y.
“They get in the car and drive it like they’ve always driven their cars, and that really tells me that fuel cells are closer than most people would believe,” he said.
They get in the car and drive it like they’ve always driven their cars…
And do they “tank up” the way they’ve always “tanked up” their cars, too? Doubtful. Also, unless GM has some new magic pony pooping them out, cell stacks typically need to be replaced every one to five years, and they’re waaay not cheap.
That said, I sure hope these turn out to be the “miracle cars” everyone is waiting for. We’ll see.
“They get in the car and drive it like they’ve always driven their cars, and that really tells me that fuel cells are closer than most people would believe,” he said.” /// Yep, I keyed on the same idea. People driving their cars is the LEAST RELEVANT issue. Lifetime cost, lifetime pollution, infrastructure needed to support the technology is the relevant issues.
Who said this? . . . . . “Daniel O’Connell===ok, on my list to ignore in the future.
Don’t the laws of physics dictate that it takes more energy to produce Hydrogen that the hydrogen produces? Hello! There is not magic pill here, the pollution just goes to the electric plant which produces the electricity needed to make the hydrogen!!! And cost? are you KIDDING?????
The hydrogen doesn’t come from an electric plant. It is made from natural gas.
it all comes from the sun
1 million miles spread over 100 cars = 10K miles/car, spread over two years. Not too real-world. To second #1 and #2, I’d like to see some more lifetime data on this.
OK tell me where this was tested. Did we test it in temped climates or in sub zero temperatures and desert heat? Did they take it on cross country adventures or just drive it in the city? I would like to know what they considered real world conditions? Because everything I have read indicates that the vehicles are not ready for that.
Conservatives were right! If we dig dig dig hard enough, we will find the answer to clean energy.
Was that the digging they were talking about?
Water vapor and steel, great start to a rusty future. I haven’t yet seen one article mentioning the effects on all this water vapor on internal engine parts. I’m sure the greenies will have a fix for that, “make it out of tempered plastic” or some other wacked out notion of green solutions which all use industry to produce. Fact is hydrogen is inefficient, and extremely dangerous, you are better off burning electricity or natural gas, or gasoline. It’s all more hype for free money. What’s the problem again? Energy crisis? No, now it’s that we need to be independent from foreign oil, ya, that will make us safe, dream on.
Energy to burn:
“Fact is hydrogen is inefficient, and extremely dangerous”
Although neither would be pleasant, you’d rather be in a hydrogen fire than a gasoline one. Hydrogen, being lighter than air causes the fireball to rise – this is why there were about 37 survivors from the Hindenburg.
Gasoline fires will pool around and toast you nicely.
Hydrogen is better thought as a way to store energy from wind, solar, wave, hydro etc. Although it is “inefficient” it’s portable.
#10 is on the ball. Hydrogen is a portable energy storage media. It can be produced from electricity and its production can be timed to be done during periods when the electric grid has surplus power.
Our electric grid can be powered by 100% non fossil fuels (requires a combination of tidal, hydro, wind, solar, & nuclear).
It maybe 10-20 years off before all of this is viable but it is one path to long term sustainable energy independence.
1 million miles across 100 cars is 10,000 miles per car, across 5000 people is 200 miles per person per car. Instead of giving each person the car for 2 weeks, how about give 1000 people the car for 2 months.
#3 – the laws of physics apply to oil as well. It has taken millions of years of heat & pressure to compress the various elements inside the earth’s core into oil. That’s why oil is such a great source of energy.
The trouble is, we’re using it up at a rate faster than the earth will regenerate it. (yes, that’s right oil is a renewable resource! it just takes longer to renew.)
Now you take take various hydro-carbons which aren’t quite oil yet (like the oil sands, shale oil, etc) apply a ton of heat & pressure (energy) and get oil.
Or, you can take water, apply a bunch of energy and get hydrogen. And you’re right, all you’ve done is transfer the energy used get the hydrogen into a form which can then be used in a fuel-cell.
BTW, there are fuel-cells which use methane, natural gas, or even gasoline – the catch is, the emissions are the same as cars.
So what we need are a few 100 nuclear power stations, or a few 100,000 solar or wind power stations to generate enough electricity to get the hydrogen from the water.
But that only makes economic sense when oil is $200/barrel.
This isn’t rocket science people. Here is a plan for the future: transition all transportation to electric and build a butt load of LFTRs (Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors) {Google it people) to produce the electricity. For the life of me I can’t understand why no one is building these reactors. They are safe as houses and can reprocess the waste products of conventional nuclear plants.
#10, has it right. Hydrogen is an energy transfer medium, not a power source.
And before anyone says it, yes, going strait to battery in an electric car would be much more efficient. However, no electric car can go 400 miles yet. Battery technology just isn’t their. When batteries or some other type of storage medium gets more dense, then the electric car will be the way to go.
Use hydrogen as the fuel source for small revised rotary type engines in hybrid cars makes sense. Tons of batteries not needed, mechanical engines not needed. And inefficient mechanical drive trains wasting energy eliminated.
Hah! Can you imagine what kind of future it’ll be when everyone’s driving fuel cell cars and spitting all that water vapor into the atmosphere? You’ll be peeling mildew off your faces every morning, just so you can shave. Old metal parts will rust and fall apart. Breathing becomes difficult, leading to pulmonary disease. It’ll be like the outdoor scenes in Blade Runner, where it doesn’t really rain but everything’s wet anyway. Your dishes will take a week to dry after you wash them …
#19,
Look at the bright side, you won’t need any chapstick or skin moisturizers anymore.
#6 has a valid point. This isn’t much and I don’t want to spend more than I save buying fuel cells. Then of course the massive energy was in converting energy to hydrogen is stupid.
The Auto Industry always seems to promote pumped fuel vehicles as the only viable alternatives. And these always end up relying on a station to pump it in, and that’s something that retains the current model of fuel sales and distribution. IOW, it has no price controls or regulation. Whereas electric vehicles are “fueled” anywhere there is a plug. And usually via a price regulated power utility (unless Enron screwed it up). The auto industry, is too buddy-buddy with the oil industry. Who will own anything else that gets pumped into cars, the second it’s invented. And price it according to their greed. Electric cars is what threatens this, more than anything else. So that’s why they’re the last thing the Auto Industry wants to make.
I seriously doubt that these fuel cell vehicles hold enough liquid or gaseous hydrogen, to compete with the range of current all electric cars, between fill ups. In fact it wouldn’t surprise me if this car owners (leasers) had a refueling service. That drops by to top off their car’s hydrogen supply. The same way Home Heating Oil services refill homes’ tanks.
Expecting these fuel cell car drivers to find the one service station in their area, that carries hydrogen. Seems asking a bit much. Either they only cherry picked test drivers, who lived anywhere near such a facility. Or they’re bring the fuel to them, and not disclosing this detail. It can’t be as “convenient” to refuel a hydrogen tank, versus a gasoline tank, as they’re making it out to be. But I’m sure an NDA tells them not to mention the pre-arranged refueling service.
I’m sure Fred Flintstone forgot he uses his feet to power his car after about a week also!
if GM can really sell it and create the refueling / recharging stations easy and convenient they might find a new niche. And honestly that would really make Gm a contender again