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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.
... Read moreShell this week opened its second hydrogen filling station in the greater New York City area, providing improved access to hydrogen for drivers of fuel cell Chevrolet Equinoxes participating in Project Driveway.
Project Driveway selects consumers who sign up on the Internet in the greater New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. areas to participate for two months at a time in the demonstration. Shell will open a third station this summer in the Bronx in conjunction with the New York City Department of Sanitation.
Shell's hydrogen station in White Plains has been operating there for more than a year, making up Shell's first cluster of hydrogen filling stations.
The station opened July 14, 2009, at JFK International Airport is a partnership between Shell, General Motors, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and the US Department of Energy.
(Source: General Motors)
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.
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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.
... Read more
Mazda's new test vehicle uses a series hybrid powertrain.
(Credit: Mazda)To further its research into new powertrain technology, Mazda began leasing a series hybrid vehicle with a hydrogen-fueled range extending engine to energy companies and local governments. This type of test leasing helps automakers gain useful data on how cars operate in a controlled setting, and ensures that the vehicles' drivers have hydrogen filling stations available.
Although the powertrain configuration is similar to that of the Chevrolet Volt, a series hybrid using an electric motor to power the wheels and a range-extending engine to generate electricity, Mazda puts its own twist on the system, with a hydrogen-burning rotary engine as a range extender. Mazda previously developed an RX-8 using a rotary engine that burned hydrogen, calling it the RX-8 Hydrogen RE. BMW has also explored burning hydrogen in an internal combustion engine with the Hydrogen 7.
Mazda's new vehicle is called the Premacy Hydrogen RE Hybrid, and is built on the five passenger Premacy platform. It has a 110 kilowatt motor to turn the wheels, which gets juice from a lithium ion battery pack. When the battery runs low, the rotary engine kicks in to generate electricity, drawing hydrogen from a 5,000 PSI tank. As configured, the Premacy Hydrogen RE Hybrid gets a range of 125 miles.
The car includes a dual fuel system, making it possible to use gasoline if no hydrogen is available.
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.
... Read more
