GM shows off fifth-generation fuel cell stack, hopes to commercialize unit by 2015
While improvements to the tried-and-true internal combustion engine continue to come in small, incremental bits year after year, hydrogen fuel cell technology is progressing in leaps and bounds. Evidence of such can be seen in the latest version of General Motors' hydrogen fuel cell system.
At the heart of GM's technology is the automaker's fifth-generation fuel cell stack. As we reported last month when we got a firsthand look at the unit, this stack is half the size, weighs 220 pounds less and uses less than half the precious metals of its immediate predecessor. GM hopes to have this fuel cell stack in commercial use by 2015.
Of course, much more is required than a high quality hydrogen powertrain. Charles Freese, executive director of GM Fuel Cell Activities says:
A suitable hydrogen infrastructure and "consumer pull for the products" are really large pieces of the puzzle that no individual automaker can rectify alone. Click past the break for the official press release.GM has invested more than $1.5 billion in fuel cell technology and we are committed to continuing to invest, but we no longer can go it alone. As we approach a costly part of the program, we will require government and industry partnerships to install a hydrogen infrastructure and help create a customer pull for the products... Failure to act will insure the U.S. cannot meet its long-term fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas reduction objectivesWe know what needs to be done. Now is the time to get started.
PRESS RELEASE
GM's Gen 2 Fuel Cell System Cuts Size, Weight and Cost
System with 5th Generation Fuel Cell Stack Could Be Commercialized in 2015
Washington, D.C. -- The second generation hydrogen fuel cell system in development by General Motors Co. is half the size, 220 pounds lighter and uses less than half the precious metal of the current generation in the Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell electric vehicle.
And the production intent fuel cell powertrain can be packaged under the hood in about the same space as a four-cylinder engine. It contains GM's fifth-generation fuel cell stack, which could be commercialized in the 2015 time frame.
"The improvements the team has been able to achieve are remarkable," said Charles Freese, executive director of GM Fuel Cell Activities. "Hardware mechanization has been dramatically simplified, which will help reduce cost, simplify manufacturing and improve durability."
Hydrogen-powered fuel cells are a few years away from widespread commercial use because of the need for additional investment and partnership, along with expanded availability of hydrogen fueling stations.
"GM has invested more than $1.5 billion in fuel cell technology and we are committed to continuing to invest, but we no longer can go it alone," Freese said. "As we approach a costly part of the program, we will require government and industry partnerships to install a hydrogen infrastructure and help create a customer pull for the products."
Through Project Driveway, a demonstration fleet of more than 100 hydrogen-powered fuel cell electric Chevrolet Equinox midsize crossovers has amassed more than 1 million miles of every-day driving by ordinary citizens, celebrities and others since late 2007.
In recent weeks, a consortium of the German government and leading industrial companies has announced plans to build up to 1,000 hydrogen fueling stations by 2015, about the time several automakers expect to have hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for sale. Earlier, a group of 13 oil and gas companies in Japan announced similar plans.
" Failure to act will insure the U.S. cannot meet its long-term fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas reduction objectives," Freese said. "We know what needs to be done. Now is the time to get started."
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
polo 7:22PM (9/24/2009)
At what cost?? $The only customers for these $400K hydro-suckers will be the government.
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Dave 9:34PM (9/24/2009)
What do you see there that would make this cost $400,000? Especially when produced in volume?
polo 10:04PM (9/24/2009)
$100K for one of these would be a revolutionary price breakthrough....and it would still be thoroughly impractical. GM won't be these in volume because there isn't enough infastructure to support any type of mass rollout. Without hundreds of billions in infastructure development, on a national scale, these are still impractical gimmicks. Its not like with EVs where people can opt for slower charging sources if there aren't any fast-charging stations around yet...people won't buy a car they can't actually fuel. You need serious investments in infrastructure. and you want to talk about economies of scale?? what do you think is going to happen to the price of batteries by 2015 with global rollouts of EVs, backed strongly by many governments? neither the fuel cell nor the hydrogen fuel will be price competitive with EVs, let alone gasoline.
Dave 10:11PM (9/24/2009)
Nonsense.
There is already an economy of scale with lithium ion batteries.
They are in every cell phone, laptop, GPS, and digital camera on the market.
The fact is, BEVs require a HUGE HUGE HUGE battery pack to travel an acceptable range, especially when driven aggressively, or operated in cold climates.
Dave 10:15PM (9/24/2009)
As far as the infrastructure issue -
ICE automobiles will be with us for several more decades, no doubt.
There is plenty of time to phase in H2 fueling stations.
I agree that fuel cells are going to be ready for us long before we are ready for fuel cells.
Chris M 10:58PM (9/24/2009)
Dave, current retail prices of H2 fuel cells comes to about $4,000 per Kw, so a 100 kw fuel cell would be $400,000. Even if we supposed further breakthroughs cuts the price to 1/4 that, it would still be $100,000, plus the cost of the batteries and all the other components needed to make a car. Makes the Tesla Model S and Fiskar Karma appear downright cheap in comparison.
Yes, EV battery packs are big, but even the Tesla Roadster battery weighs just 900 lbs and costs just $30,000 retail, a fraction of the cost of any automotive fuel cell. Cut that price by 1/4, and its only $7,500 (or do you think only fuel cells will improve?)
meme 11:28PM (9/24/2009)
"There is already an economy of scale with lithium ion batteries. They are in every cell phone, laptop, GPS, and digital camera on the market."
Huh. So apparently, my laptop, GPS, and digital camera use large format prismatic lithium iron phosphate cells? Do go on!
Hint: only Tesla and those they license to are using laptop-type cells. They pay about $0.35/Wh for them. Everyone else is paying closer to $0.50/Wh, despite the raw materials being much cheaper. And why are batteries made with cheaper materials selling for more? Because they're not mass produced and the production processes are less refined.
Dave 10:02AM (9/25/2009)
The Tesla battery pack costs at least $25,000 and weighs 900 lbs.
Tesla advertises 244 mile range - that is only in "range" mode which fully charges and deep discharges the batteries. The actual range is ~185 miles is driven carefully on a clear mild day. On a cold snowy, slushy day in Michigan, you will be lucky to get 125 miles. And thats in a tiny, lightweight, aerodynamic two seater.
In order to achieve 250 miles (an acceptable but unimpressive range) on a cold, slushy day in Michigan, in a midsize car, you will need a battery pack with three times the capacity. That pack will cost at least $75,000 and weigh 2700 lbs.
Unless there is a breakthrough in battery technology that reduces cost and weight by at least 80%, pure BEVs will be unacceptable to a large percentage of the population.
Large prismatic gobbledygook nonsense will not achieve an 80% improvement by any stretch of the imagination.
Mike 11:09AM (9/25/2009)
Not one automaker has quoted a price for a mass produced fuel cell car. Please stop pretending you know more about the price than the automakers investing in the technology.
letstakeawalk 1:01PM (9/25/2009)
Chris M
Fuel cell prices are no where near $100 K:
"When NASA first started using fuel-cell technology in space, a PEM fuel cell cost about $500,000 per kW. Today that price has dropped to around $500 per kW - but that means that a fuel-cell engine still costs about $25,000, which is around seven times the price of a typical IC engine (about $3500)."
"Fuel Cells Start to look Real" Automotive Engineering Online, SAE International
With mass production, costs could drop substantially:
"According to two independent cost analyses conducted by TIAX and Directed Technologies Inc., for example, state-of-the-art fuel-cell technology from 2008 could produce power at the rate of $73/kW if 500,000 units were manufactured a year. The estimated figure for 2002 fuel-cell systems is about $275/kW, and the DOE cost goal for 2015 is $30/kW."
"Congress looks with favor on fuel-cell funding", 21-Sep-2009, Automotive Engineering Online, SAE International.
Ernie 2:32PM (9/25/2009)
Dave: That $75,000 for the battery you propose is still way cheaper than the $400,000 for the fuel cell to do the same job.
Then you still have to deal with $6 a kilo (wholesale!) for the hydrogen fuel. That is literally equivalent to $6 a gallon for gas, but more like a retail price of $7 or $8. And that's with the cheapest production method, using natural gas. It would be more efficient to just burn the natural gas in an internal combustion engine than to bother with all the crap you'd have to deal with to get the hydrogen to the public, and it would produce exactly the same CO2 emissions.
At the very least, electricity is dirt cheap in comparison as a fuel, and its price is not highly volatile. Moreover, it can be produced without any emissions at all for significantly less cost per KWh than you get from gasoline. Which also requires electricity to refine, by the way.
The fact of the matter is that most people who want H2 cells want it solely so they can believe that they aren't polluting, while at the same time being able to recharge in 2 minutes. They're not even considering the cost.
gorr 7:36PM (9/24/2009)
This is just a way to starve the peoples while casching money from the poors and workers. It's that compagny, along with mercedes, ford, chrysler, nissan, toyota, honda, daihashu, mitchubischi, tata, kawasaki, suzuki, harley davidson, ktm, citroen, etc that have study mecanisms from almost 100 years and have patented and bury and prohibited a lot of technologies that move
a car forward. With each discoveries, they made a deep depression and decided that's it's better to kill biology and humans. Consumers should know this, that they are not served by this numerical high financial car producers named gm, the other are just the same. They cash tax and dead biology.
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NB 8:28AM (9/26/2009)
Shouldn’t you be on a ledge somewhere
Thunderbuck 7:38PM (9/24/2009)
I'm struck by how much this resembles a conventional 4 cylinder engine & transaxle package...
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Chris M 10:33PM (9/24/2009)
Thats because they are designing it to fit in a standard engine bay, as a simple replacement for their existing gasoline engines and PHEV range extenders. GM has, for the most part, dropped their "skateboard chassis" idea, as it was too difficult to fit sufficiently large H2 tanks into that relatively thin floorspace.
Thunderbuck 1:47AM (9/25/2009)
Well, let's face it, it DOES make more sense to build flexible architectures that can be used in other ways.
letstakeawalk 3:46PM (9/25/2009)
Chris M
First of all, the GM "skateboard chassis" is just a concept that they use to try out ideas. It was as much about developing "drive-by-wire" tech as it is about fuel-cells and electric propulsion. It was never intended to go into production... just as an engineering exercise of what could be done.
"...it was too difficult to fit sufficiently large H2 tanks into that relatively thin floorspace."
Wrong. There were three 5,000 psi hydrogen tanks in the 2002 Hy-Wire concept, and it had a predicted range of 150 miles. With modern 10,000 psi tanks in the exact same location, the Hy-Wire would have a 300 mile range (ignoring using better electric motors that are now available as well).
http://media.gm.com/news/releases/020926_hywire_chassis.html
http://www.mikeandmaaike.com/images/atnmbl_tech/gm_hywire02.jpg
Chris M 11:11PM (9/25/2009)
GM never released any range information for the original HyWire concept, but someone used the information GM did reveal, to calculate a range of 67 miles. Doubling that would still be just 134 miles, to reach 300 miles would require other modifications, not just doubling tank pressure.
The public was very enthused by the "Skateboard chassis" idea, so there must be a good reason why GM abandoned it, and that reason is the bulkiness of H2 storage.
letstakeawalk 12:30AM (9/26/2009)
"...so there must be a good reason why GM abandoned it, and that reason is the bulkiness of H2 storage."
That's your theory, and you're sticking to it. Good for you. You don't have all the facts, so your best guess and someone's else's estimation is enough evidence for you. (I was going by the numbers in the press release).
But you miss the point: the Hy-Wire was a concept, not intended for mass production. How many "concept" ICE cars (or BEVs) have any sort of real world range - never mind all the other bells and whistles that exist only in the feverish imaginations of the designers?
Randy S 7:46PM (9/24/2009)
" Failure to act will insure the U.S. cannot meet its long-term fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas reduction objectives," Freese said. "We know what needs to be done. Now is the time to get started."
Why don't you get started by assembling your prospectuse and selling your solution to the capital markets. That's what capital markets are for, to raise money for good ideas, surely the market will back you like they did A123 today, we all know fuel cells are the future and that batteries are just transitional.
Nothing like the true spirit of entrepreneurship, made in America.
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