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Mercedes-Benz new fuel cell research vehicle is built on its B-class platform.
(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)Instead of big, new vehicle launches at the Los Angeles Auto Show, Mercedes-Benz focused heavily on technology. The company brought out its next generation fuel cell vehicle, a car that lets passenger and driver view different content on the same screen, and an iPhone app that works with the company's new telematics service, Mbrace.
The 2011 Mercedes-Benz F-Cell is a fuel cell research vehicle, continuing the company's look into using hydrogen fuel cells to generate electricity to drive a car. The new model is based on the Mercedes-Benz B-class, a small vehicle with practical interior space. The fuel cells, lithium ion battery, and hydrogen tanks sit below the floorboards.
Mercedes-Benz owners can use this iPhone app to unlock their doors.
(Credit: Wayne Cunningham/CNET)The hydrogen tanks store 3.7 kilograms of hydrogen compressed at 10,000 psi, while the lithium ion battery produces 35 kilowatts. This vehicle's range is 248 miles, getting the equivalent of 86.6 mpg. The electric motor drives the wheels with 136 horsepower and 214 pound-feet of torque, getting the F-Cell to 60 mph in 11.3 seconds.
For its production cars, Mercedes-Benz introduced its new Mbrace service, powered by Hughes Telematics. Similar to competing services such as Onstar, Mbrace provides crash notification to the nearest authorities, concierge services for navigation, and emergency roadside assistance. Mbrace also offers traffic and weather features, but most of these are concierge-based, so you will have to talk to a real operator.
Mbrace includes a smart phone app, current available for the Blackberry and iPhone, that lets you lock and unlock your car from almost anywhere in the world. The app uses a graphic of a Mercedes-Benz key, with button areas matching the lock and unlock functions of the physical key. The app also has a car location feature, which can guide you to your car if you forgot where you parked it.
And finally, Mercedes-Benz will offer an optional split-view technology for the LCDs in its S- and CL-class cars. This technology lets the passenger watch a movie, while the driver uses the car's navigation. Check out Brian Cooley's video, in which he shows how it works.
DETROIT--General Motors is still striving to prepare a fuel cell power train for production around 2012, says the company's new research and development chief.
"Technology leadership is one of the pillars of the company. That is going to remain, and it will probably be emphasized as part of the brand of GM," says Alan Taub, executive director of GM r&d.
Taub, 54, takes over for Larry Burns, 58, who retires Oct. 1.
GM has significantly reduced the size and cost of its fuel cell stack, which produces electricity from hydrogen. The latest generation fits in the same space as the company's four-cylinder Ecotech engine.
But the future of fuel cells is uncertain in part because the United States would have to spend billions of dollars to create a fueling infrastructure for hydrogen. And the Obama administration has little enthusiasm for hydrogen.
Taub, who has a Ph.D. in applied physics, spent 15 years in research at General Electric before working for Ford Motors. He joined GM in 2001. Taub reports to product development chief Tom Stephens.
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Scientists from Ohio University have come across a way to harvest large amounts of cheap hydrogen from a rather unlikely source: urine. Apparently, plucking hydrogen atoms from urine is much easier than getting it from water.
Gerardine Botte, one of the Ohio University professors actively developing this "pee power" technology, attributes this difference to urea, a cleaner of diesel emissions and major component of urine. A molecule of urea is composed of four hydrogen atoms and two nitrogen atoms. Applying an electric current using a special nickel electrode causes those hydrogen atoms to pop right off. The trick is that it requires about 97 percent less electricity to release the hydrogen from the urea molecules than from a water molecule--specifically 0.037 volt for urine versus 1.23 volts for water.
Imagine a future where fuel cell vehicles get 90 miles per gallon (of pee) and farms generate their own power from livestock waste. That future could be here sooner than you think. Botte currently has a working small-scale prototype that generates up to 500 milliwatts of power, and she plans to have large-scale examples up and running in about six months.
I imagine this will probably change the nature of stopping for a fill-up during a long road trip.
(Via Discovery News)
Obama talks GM, but leaves out the "B" word. Hydrogen is back this week; will it stay? And the new version of Microsoft SYNC is out; we'll tell you what it does and if your Ford can get it. Plus, a ride in a hotted-up Lexus.
Listen now: Download today's podcast
SHOW NOTES
• CNET Video: Cooley drives the Lexus IS350
• Check here to upgrade SYNC in your FoMoCo vehicle
The Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell takes part in the Hydrogen Road Tour.
(Credit: GM)Electric cars have been getting plenty of buzz lately, but the development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is still going strong. The California Fuel Cell Partnership, along with Powertech Labs, National Hydrogen Association, and U.S. Fuel Cell Council, will seek to regain the spotlight with a road trip to demonstrate the practicality of these vehicles.
The road tour route runs up the West Coast, from Chula Vista to Vancouver.
(Credit: California Fuel Cell Partnership)Twelve fuel cell cars from seven automakers will drive from Chula Vista, in Southern California, up to Vancouver, Canada, a trip of 1,700 miles. Vancouver was chosen for the destination because it will play host to the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, where a fleet of fuel cell buses will provide transportation.
Fuel cell cars that will be making the trip include the Chevy Equinox Fuel Cell, Mercedes F-Cell, Honda FCX Clarity, Hyundai Tucson FCEV, Kia Borrego FCEV, Nissan X-Trail, Toyota FCHV-adv Highlander, and Volkswagen HyMotion. The cars, which have ranges of 200 to over 500 miles, will be relying on a mobile refueling station for their hydrogen needs.
The tour starts on May 26 in Chula Vista, and ends on June 3 in Vancouver. Stops have been scheduled along the route so the public can get a chance to see these cars. Check the Hydrogen Road Tour '09 Web site to see if there's an event near you.
(Credit:
CNET)
If you watched the Olympics in Beijing, you may have noticed Volkswagen Passats being used as pace cars for some of the running and cycling competitions. More than just product placement, these Passats demonstrated a hydrogen fuel cell power train built by Volkswagen at its China research laboratory. The car is called the Volkswagen Passat Ling Yu hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, and we got a chance to drive it here in California.
Volkswagen brought a number of these cars to the California Fuel Cell Partnership (CFCP), a unique organization that works with major automakers such as Honda, Ford, Toyota, Nissan, Hyundai, and Volkswagen on fuel cell research. CFCP also promotes research into hydrogen generation and filling stations.
So, on a hot Sacramento day, we took the wheel of a car that just might be the future of automotive transportation. As the car is built on the Passat platform, it doesn't exactly look like the car of the future. The controls and ergonomics are all very familiar. But a kilowatt gauge takes the place of a tachometer on the instrument cluster.
The gauge on the left shows how many kilowatts the motor is drawing.
(Credit: CNET)Although driven by an electric motor, which doesn't make much sound in itself, the car produced a steady whining sound. Not unpleasant, but certainly noticeable, it came from the compressor used to push hydrogen into the fuel cell. The power-train packaging is similar to that of a gas-engine car, with the fuel cell stack, compressor, and control software under the hood, and hydrogen tanks at the rear axle. The car also has a lithium ion battery in the middle of the chassis, which provides electricity storage for the regenerative brakes and supplements the flow to the motor.
... Read moreWASHINGTON--President George W. Bush's $1.2 billion plan to develop cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells was eliminated by President Barack Obama last week, saving $100 million a year.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the government prefers to target more immediate energy-saving solutions.
"The probability of deploying hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in the next 10 to 20 years is low," Energy Department spokesman Tom Welch said in an interview.
(Source: Automotive News)
We had a random encounter with this hydrogen-powered F-Cell vehicle.
(Credit: CNET)While out testing the very stylish Aston Martin DB9 Volante in the Santa Cruz Mountains recently, we ran across the car's opposite, a Mercedes-Benz F-Cell research car. We caught up with the F-Cell (easily) and followed it to a vista point, where we cornered its driver and started grilling him about the car. It's not often you see the future of the automobile out in the wild like this.
This F-Cell was from the first generation, built into Mercedes-Benz's A-class platform, a small vehicle that's not sold in the U.S. Its 5,000-psi hydrogen tank feeds a fuel cell that produces electricity, in turn powering an 87-horsepower electric motor.
The driver of the car was a Mercedes-Benz engineer stationed with the car in Palo Alto, California. The company maintains many test fleets. He had pulled into the parking lot not because he thought James Bond was on his tail, but to plug his laptop into the F-Cell and download diagnostic data. Mercedes-Benz has logged well over a million miles with these F-Cell cars, and every mile yields useful data about performance in the real world.
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A driver fills up a Fuel Cell Vehicle with hydrogen at one of California's few public hydrogen refueling stations. California is expected to get 46 more hydrogen retail stations by 2014.
(Credit: California Fuel Cell Partnership)Paving the way for the so-called Hydrogen Super Highway, California Fuel Cell Partnership released a roadmap that details plans for 46 retail hydrogen fueling stations in six targeted California communities by 2014. Hydrogen is considered to be the holy grail of clean transportation because Fuel Cell Vehicles (FCV) emit only water when driven, but a lack of infrastructure is one of the major roadblocks to this advancement.
"By 2017, automotive manufacturers plan to place 50,000 zero-emission fuel cell vehicles in customer hands. FCVs will provide the performance, durability, driving range, and comfort that customers want, and meet the nation's need for a domestic fuel that is better for the environment," said Catherine Dunwoody, CaFCP's executive director in a press release.
For the moment, only six of the state's 26 hydrogen refueling stations are open to the public. Most are privately owned and operated for corporate fleet or testing vehicles. The CaFCP gave details for the cost of building 40 stations by 2012, which is projected to be $181.5 million and is expected to be funded largely by the government to incentivize the industry to begin the transition to hydrogen.
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(Credit:
New Holland Agriculture)
Taking the lessons learned from the development of hydrogen-powered cars and applying them on a larger scale, New Holland Agriculture has developed the impressive NH2, the world's first hydrogen-powered tractor.
A peek under the hood reveals the radical new hydrogen-electric power plant.
(Credit: New Holland Agriculture)The NH2 was developed as part of New Holland Agriculture's Energy Independent Farm concept, a framework for future agriculture in which farmers produce their own compressed hydrogen from water using electricity produced by wind farms, solar panels, or biomass and biogas processes situated on the farm.
The experimental NH2 tractor replaces the traditional combustion engine with hydrogen fuel cells that convert compressed hydrogen back into electricity to drive the electric motors powering the tractor's drivetrain and auxiliary systems.
More than just an idea, the NH2 tractor is a 106-horsepower, working prototype able to perform all the tasks of a New Holland's T6000 tractor, only with no emissions and in near silence.
The fuel cell generates less heat than an internal-combustion engine, offers a consistent output of power, and does not produce polluting nitrogen oxides, soot particles, or carbon dioxide. The clean operation of the tractor brings added health benefits when working in confined areas, such as animal sheds or greenhouses.
