GM fuel cell boss explains that the technology needs to pass final cost hurdle to production
General Motors fuel cell comparsion - click above to enlarge
It's no secret that General Motors remains committed to hydrogen fuel cells as a long term solution to zero emissions transportation. In this cause, GM is in league with many of the largest automakers in the world including Toyota, Honda, Daimler, and Hyundai. Recently we ran an editorial refuting some reports (including one of our own) about the cost of GM's fuel cell system. Charlie Freese, GM's executive director of fuel cell activities, has written a post on the Fastlane blog that expands on some of what we said regarding the cost of the fuel cell system used in the Project Driveway Chevy Equinoxes.
GM has revealed some of the specific details of the latest generation system compared to the four-year-old system used in the Equinox. Freese explains that the fuel cell system is now at a stage where the engineers are working diligently to reduce the cost and bring it to parity with more conventional systems, something that should happen in the next few years.
Photos Copyright ©2009 Sam Abuelsamid / Weblogs, Inc.
[Source: GM Fastlane Blog]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Doug 12:35PM (11/11/2009)
"GM fuel cell boss explains that the technology needs to past the final cost hurdle to production"
You guys should correct that title.
"...working diligently to reduce the cost and bring it to parity with more conventional systems, something that should happen in the next few years."
Yes, I hear in 2015 fuel cells will be "shockingly low".
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meme 1:09PM (11/11/2009)
Yep -- any fuel cell advocate should have a T-shirt made:
"Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles: Just five years away!"
The shirt will remain timely, decade after decade.
jay 12:40PM (11/11/2009)
^^ yep and the infrastructure will be ready to go as well!
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Mike!!ekiM 1:10PM (11/11/2009)
And for an added benefit, it does nothing to help slowdown or stop Global Warming.
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EVdriver 12:48PM (11/11/2009)
"GM fuel cell boss explains that the technology needs to past the final cost hurdle to production"
Oh yeah, that final hurdle is "laws of physics". They just have to change them, and fool cell suddenly will be a big success. Good luck!
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~D. 12:53PM (11/11/2009)
haters.
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Serge 12:53PM (11/11/2009)
Wishful thinking aside, the cost of hydrogen fuel cell system is chump change compared to cost of renewable hydrogen production and distribution infrastructure required to bring hydrogen fuel cell transportation into reality.
At this point GM's insistence on *hydrogen* fuel cells is delusional. The Hydrogen Highway is dead and will not be built. Instead of stubbornly refusing to face reality GM needs to dramatically rethink its fuel cell program. Think practical: halve power output to 40 kW, add alcohol reformer, get an excellent ultra-low emission range extender for Voltec powertrain. Shift long-term research to direct methanol or ethanol fuel cells. China is becoming GMs "big" market and is building methanol flex-fuel infrastructure. Before it's too late GM needs to think ahead of competition, like they did with the Volt.
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letstakeawalk 1:18PM (11/11/2009)
"China is becoming GMs "big" market and is building methanol flex-fuel infrastructure."
Meme's already explained that one: everyone in China is going to die from the toxic methanol vapors.
meme 2:39PM (11/11/2009)
May I offer my most sincere compliments at the beautiful straw man you've made. May I hit it too?
paulwesterberg 12:56PM (11/11/2009)
If cost is the only problem that must mean GM is ok with the 80,000 mile lifespan.
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augustus 1:01PM (11/11/2009)
Were you to look at the chart you would see that they are providing a kW rating for the engine at 150,000 miles. So your 80k mile FUD is somewhat laughable.
meme 1:10PM (11/11/2009)
Augustus: 80,000 miles *is* the official GM range on the new stack. Now, like batteries, fuel cells don't just spontaneously die at a certain point. It's a case of power output degrading below what's considered a useful point. I'm not sure what exactly is the standard for fuel cells, but with batteries, the standard seems to be "capacity degrading below 80% of initial."
augustus 3:36PM (11/11/2009)
Meme the *extremely* important difference between fuel cell degradation and battery degradation is that with fuel cells you get less power but with batteries you get less range. I can live with less power as it means that I simply accelerate a bit slower. Less battery range is a killer for me as I can either complete my 115 mile daily commute or I cannot.
All in all I would love for either a fuel cell vehicle or a bev that is reliable. I'd like my next car to not be an ICE.
Also nice to see that they use 30g of Platinum, that is a great improvement.
meme 3:45PM (11/11/2009)
"I can live with less power as it means that I simply accelerate a bit slower."
That's not what it means at all. The fuel cell doesn't provide peak power, like a gasoline engine; it provides *average* power, which is then buffered by a li-ion battery or ultracapacitor. What a decline in power means is that you can't maintain speed on the freeway or go up long, steep grades anymore. It has nothing to do with temporary acceleration bursts of speed.
Chris M 12:06AM (11/12/2009)
It isn't just a decline in power due to catalyst migration and poisoning, PEM fuel cells also suffer from erosion of the electrolyte membrane during use. When that erosion perforates the membrane, the fuel cell fails completely (and potentially catastrophically) That typically occurred to PEM fuel cell vehicles before 80,000 miles.
The GM solution to that "80K" failure problem is to make their first actual "ready for market" H2 fuel cell vehicle a plug-in hybrid, relegating the fuel cell to "range extender" only. With over 2/3 of the driving being done on electricity from the outlet, the fuel cell is used only 1/3 as much, which effectively triples the fuel cell lifespan to 210,000 miles.
Unfortunately, that solution presents additional problems. That "H2FC Volt" would have a hard time competing cost-wise with the regular Volt, and lack of H2 infrastructure will be a big problem for refueling on long trips away from big cities. Also, the low consumption of H2 fuel might not be enough to support the H2 infrastructure that is built, especially during the "early period" where the H2 refueling infrastructure is concentrated in a few very large cities.
letstakeawalk 1:10PM (11/11/2009)
Nice article.
"In this cause, GM is in league with many of the largest automakers in the world including Toyota, Honda, Daimler, and Hyundai."
Keep up the good work, guys. I'm rooting for ya.
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David Martin 1:32PM (11/11/2009)
How difficult is it to reform on board hydrogen from methanol or dimethyl ether?
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Cwhite 4:52PM (11/11/2009)
It certainly can be done, and many of the fuel cells for consumer use do just that. A vehicle has a different power demand than a cell phone charger, or even a fuel cell for stationary power. Several of the automakers experimented with on-board reforming of methanol and gasoline several years ago, but found that using hydrogen is less complex and more efficient.
Ra Conteur 1:53PM (11/11/2009)
This new technology put FEAR in the eyes of H2 haters. Not that it's ready to go but you gotto wonder... Would the big power brokers really have invested all this money in "fool cells" if they didn't have a low cost source of H2 somewhere down the line??
All that technology pent up, waiting in the wings - in the QT hangers. Arghhh!!!
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/11/bruce-20091111.html
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letstakeawalk 2:05PM (11/11/2009)
"The University of Tennessee team showed that a stable supply of hydrogen can be generated using a platinum catalyst and a system made of PSI isolated from the thermophilic cyanobacterium T. elongatus and a recombinant form of cytochrome-c6 (cyt c6) protein."
Go UT!
There's also waste hydrogen gas, which will supply part of the Vancouver FC fleet.
http://www.hydrogenhighway.ca/code/navigate.asp?Id=224
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/energy/hydrogen.html
Imagine, complaining about the cost of producing hydrogen, when there are companies producing "...more than 1,000 kilograms of the lightest substance in the universe every hour..."