Fuel cells cars being evaluated in Death Valley
Over the past decade, fuel cell cars have evolved from barely functional auto show concepts into fully functional, viable vehicles that can go upwards of 300 miles on a fill up. In most cases you can just hop and drive. There's just two little details to address, the cost of the fuel cell stack and availability of hydrogen. General Motors is confident that they will have the cost of their stack down to $50/kW making it equal to current gas engine powertrains within two years. The Department of Energy has been aggressively supporting fuel cell programs and is currently sponsoring a National Hydrogen Learning Demonstration so that regular people can try out these new vehicles and provide feedback to manufacturers. One of the places these vehicles are being evaluated is Death Valley where car-makers regularly take their new models to check out hot weather performance in the 125°F heat. A camera wielding observer happened to catch some of the vehicles during a driver change including a Mercedes F-Cell and a Nissan FCV.
[Source: WorldCarFans.com]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Peter 12:21PM (7/18/2007)
"There's just two little details to address, the cost of the fuel cell stack and availability of hydrogen."
That reminds me of a quote from an employee of AC Propulsion (makers of the Tzero) from a few years back:
"Two Problems with Fuel Cells: 1. The fuel. 2. The cell."
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1985 Gripen 1:31PM (7/18/2007)
I'm sure those test drivers will make sure the air-conditioning works optimally! ;-)
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A.Brien 1:38PM (7/18/2007)
I think that for the cells , they hesitate of putting it on the market because they continually succeed in improving it so they look each others and wait for the first to enter the market. When they succeed of increasing the output and reduce the weight and cost then they continue that improvement and they don't put it on the market because they must feel that they can do better in 6 or 12 months. They have working prototype since 1998... As for the fuel(hydrogen) it's not the auto industry that decide. They should push new compagny to offer hydrogen that can be produce at the gas station from water or natural gas, it's possible and cut transportation cost. Even honda sell a home hydrogen machine that make hydrogen from your natural gas line. People unfortunattelly don't have a clue what a fuelcell is nor hydrogen. Just 1% of the people understand what is a fuelcell and hydrogen but 100% of the people know what a car is. The manufacturer must know that people learn thing by doing the thing not by reading it, so they hesitate way too much with fuelcell. Just honda seem interrested of putting it on the market now. A good thing to know and good for their green reputation.
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