Vancouver 2009: GMC Sierra 1500 hydrogen truck
GMC Sierra 1500 hydrogen truck - Click above for a high-res image gallery
One of the few vehicles on display at the Hydrogen + Fuel Cells 2009 conference here in Vancouver is a modified GMC Sierra 1500 pickup truck. The modifications involved swapping out the gas tank for three 150-liter compressed gas hydrogen ones (they're huge and take up most of the bed, as you can see in these pictures: 1, 2) that allow the truck's internal combustion engine, a V8 with a supercharger, to burn H2 instead of petroleum.
The truck is used by the ecoTechnology for Vehicles department of Transport Canada to explain and demonstrate hydrogen vehicles to people. eTV uses waste hydrogen from the Integrated Waste Hydrogen Utilization Project (IWHUP) to fill the tanks and it was IWHUP that originally converted the truck. You can see the specs of the vehicle here. Even though eTV was showing off this H2-powered vehicle and a Nisssan X-Trail FCV, the group is not locked into promoting any one particular type of alternative fuel and regularly tests a variety of vehicles to help meet its goal of helping to "reduce vehicle greenhouse gas emissions, pollutants and fuel consumption in order to promote a sustainable transportation system for Canadians."
Gallery: GMC Sierra 1500 Hydrogen Truck
Our travel and lodging for this event were paid for by the Canadian Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
contact 4:34PM (6/02/2009)
note the REQUIRED supercharger. It needs it to make up for the lack of power when running H2 as a fuel source. Mazda suffered a similar power loss with their H2 RX8 but instead just ran it NA because it doesn't have to perform towing duties.
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gorr 5:55PM (6/02/2009)
Im interrested to buy if they put it on sale near where i live along with the machine to make the hydrogen.
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jharlan 6:33PM (6/02/2009)
What a wonderful vehicle. A truck that the fuel tanks take up the whole payload space. How Much? What is the price of that truck? What does it cost to fill up with 450 liters of hydrogen? How many miles will it travel on a load of hydrogen? Why was all this pertinent information left out? We are being scammed.
And the other question is why in the world would Gorr want one?
The dam space shuttle is a nice vehicle also, and it has a decent amount of payload space, but no one can afford one of those either.
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Chris M 7:51PM (6/02/2009)
Well, a conversion to run a Prius on H2 cost $70,000, which included the tanks, fuel metering, and turbocharger. Since these tanks are quite a bit bigger, the cost would be quite a bit higher, around $90 to $100 thousand.
Gorr wants one because he's a bit obsessed, and reality has nothing to do with it. Of course, he couldn't afford it, he can barely afford the old Dodge Neon that he drives.
Chris M 7:57PM (6/02/2009)
Incredibly impractical, the range per tank would only be 140 to 200 miles at best, and thanks to those huge tanks, there is hardly any cargo space left. Kinda defeats the whole purpose of having a pickup truck.
Lucky for them that they found a "cheap" source of "waste" hydrogen, there is darn little of that available. Regular retail prices of $8 to $10 per Kg would lead to a fuel cost of $0.18 to $0.32 per mile, quite a bit higher than the cost of gasoline or diesel.
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Mehdi Cheddadi 10:00PM (6/02/2009)
Yes because everyone needs 200 miles and more of range.
Get a job closer to home and problem is fixed.
DasBoese 1:40AM (6/03/2009)
"The truck is used by the ecoTechnology for Vehicles department of Transport Canada to explain and demonstrate hydrogen vehicles to people."
Yeah, I'd say it's a pretty good means to explain why hydrogen vehicles suck.
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