Nissan shows off fuel cell SUV in London
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Nissan is showing off its latest hydrogen fuel cell prototype in London this week. The Japanese company has brought the X-Trail FCV to London's Imperial College. The X-Trail uses a 90 kW fuel cell stack with hydrogen compressed to 10,000 psi to achieve a range of over 300 miles. Nissan has developed its own fuel cell stack in house and mounted it under the front seats. The hydrogen storage tank sits below the second row seat while a lithium ion battery sits below the rear cargo floor. As in hybrid vehicles the battery is used to recapture kinetic energy during braking then feed it back for bursts of acceleration. Nissan expects to have fuel cell vehicles available for sale around 2015 although that depends on reducing the cost dramatically.
Gallery: Nissan X-Trail FCV
[Source: The Evening Standard]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Serge 4:43PM (7/17/2008)
If major components are under the seats, what's under the hood?
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meme 5:08PM (7/17/2008)
"Nissan expects to have fuel cell vehicles available for sale around 2015 although that depends on reducing the cost dramatically."
Come on, it's not like fuel cells costs several to many dollars per watt, putting the price of this vehicle in the half a million to a million dollar range... oh wait...
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Chris M 8:30PM (7/17/2008)
Well, who knows - maybe somebody will discover a huge deposit of pure platinum that brings the price waaay down!
Note that the "mass production date" for Honda and GM and Toyota and etc. all have the clause "assuming breakthroughs that reduce costs. In other words, don't hold your breath.
a.brien 5:54PM (7/17/2008)
These fuelcell cars and s.u.v are ready for mass production and selling . It's just that it will make a financial disaster for the petrol guys, lots of oil contries, millions of oil workers, lots of jobs lost in auto-industry because it need less parts and lot of jobs lost in
car dealers because it don't need maintenance, lot of jobs lost
in goverment offices regulating pollution, lot of jobs lost for the mad scientists working for solutions abouth everything, massive re-tooling for the car manufacturers to change their ice engines and transmissions and associated parts plants, the re-fueling infrastructure, the taxation of hydrogen for road use versus the
making of hydrogen gas by the citizens themself to cut cost and don't pay the taxes.
All in all very few problems compare to the pleasure of driving
a car power by electric motors and the almost complete durability of such a technology. Don't forget that im in the market for a new car and this new car is not on the market right now.
I will like to see manufacturers stop the endless researchs programs on fuelcell and start selling them now and take the energy market by putting the ultimate source of hydrogen , a water electrolyser inside the car like many have done with success.
As of goverments and journalists and natural ressources and credit compagnies and mad scientists and big corporations now unified everywhere since 2001, smell a car exhaust of even a diesel exhaust for 20 seconds then smell a fuelcell exhaust for the same amount of time and send me a report on my email adress.
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Chris M 9:03PM (7/17/2008)
With all those folks out of work, how will anyone be able to afford those half million dollar cars? But I think you worry too much. PEM fuel cells still have a limited lifespan due to erosion of the special polymer membrane, and will need replacement after about 85,000 miles, much better for repair mechanics than the 150,000 to 300,000 mile lifespan of batteries!
Also, you need not worry about the oil companies, they are the biggest makers of hydrogen, and they intend to sell that pricy new fuel as soon as they can get the government to pay the costs for all the stations.
If you want to pay the current cost of the fuel cell cars at a half million dollars each, fine, but I suspect most folks would rather wait for that "endless research" to bring the price down to reasonable levels. Of course, that may take a few centuries...
As for fueling it with an on-board electrolyzer, what powers the electrolyzer? Not the fuel cell, all its output goes to power the car. Batteries? Then why not forget the electrolyzer and expensive fuel cells and power the motors direct from the batteries! Increase the output of the fuel cells so there is extra power? But then it needs extra H2 fuel, which means more H2 from the electrolyzer, which means the electrolyzer need more power, which means needing even more power from the fuel cells needing more H2 needing more power more H2 more more more... Aint gonna work.
As for sniffing fuel cell exhaust, nah, getting scalded by hot steam is not very pleasant. I'd rather sniff the exhaust of a Tesla Roadster - wait a minute, there is no exhaust!
Serge 1:10PM (7/18/2008)
a.brien, without a doubt full of good intentions, subscribes to a theory that a system can be engineered using water as "fuel".
I personally think that non-taxpayer-supported research into fcv's should proceed full steam ahead. In the end, it helps advance electric power-train and battery research as a side-effect. Also, gives Big Oil something to do, as emerging new energy players are making a critical evolutionary step before being attacked full-on.
ivor 11:48PM (7/17/2008)
Anyone.... is the energy req'd to compress hydrogen gas to 10,000 psi a deal breaker on overall efficiency? Perhaps with 100 PV electricity it's a moot point, but on grid power as it's currently configured, might this not be an issue that's slightly off-green?
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Mili 6:59AM (7/18/2008)
I still think that Hydrogen tanks are dangerous and deadly in an accident. Its not really safe. Let's go with Prius technology and not make rush decisions in this fuel crisis situation.
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paulwesterberg 10:43AM (7/18/2008)
The only place where hydrogen makes sense is Iceland because they have excess electric power from geothermal sources. Also as an island nation their need for fuel density and long range is limited.
If your power supply is limited and comes from fossil fuels(US) then you are better off with electric cars because the efficiency of power storage & use can easily attain 85% which is much better than hyrogen fuel life cycle efficiency. Max theoretical efficiency of a fuel cell is 83%, most real world fuel cells are closer to 50% efficient.
In the future energy will be scarce and expensive, we will need to adopt systems dramatically reduce wasted energy.
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paulwesterberg 10:45AM (7/18/2008)
The only place where hydrogen makes sense is Iceland because they have excess electric power from geothermal sources. Also as an island nation their need for fuel density and long range is limited.
If your power supply is limited and comes from fossil fuels(US) then you are better off with electric cars because the efficiency of power storage & use can easily attain 85% which is much better than hyrogen fuel life cycle efficiency. Max theoretical efficiency of a fuel cell is 83%, most real world fuel cells are closer to 50% efficient.
In the future energy will be scarce and expensive, we will need to adopt systems dramatically reduce wasted energy.
Reply