General Motors To Release Fuel Cell Vehicle By 2012

Larry Burns, GM’s Vice President of Research and Development told reporters “I don’t know how many of them we’ll make at the time, but we should have them in showrooms by early next decade, around 2011 or 2012.”

Burns, who spoke in Tarrytown, New York, arrived in a prototype fuel cell powered Chevrolet Sequel, which has a range of 300 miles on 8 kilograms of hydrogen (about 17.5 pounds) and is equal to about 16 gallons of gasoline. The car is powered by lithium-ion batteries, which have a tendency to overheat. Advanced engineering is needed to “have consistency of temperature throughout the battery pack”, Burns said.

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moto - 5/21/2007 12:17:14 PM

+1 Boost

Sailor, you imply that car manufacturers shouldn't help make hydrogen a viable fuel for the future. Do you have faith that oil companies will provide other fuel options without an automaker providing the demand?

News flash: making hydrogen is not a big deal, nor is storing it. The petrochemicals industry uses it by the millions of gallons today to do things like crack sour oil to produce your gasoline. The "problem" with hydrogen is that it isn't currently delivered to every street corner in every city of every industrialized nation. Should that stop GM from offering a clean vehicle for fleet sales? For any urban automobile that isn't used for cross-country driving, hydrogen fuel is ready for prime time in combustion engines. Fuel cells, perhaps too expensive for mobile vehicles for a while -- those are better as home/office powerplants and remote electrical generation.

Let's hope that fuel companies work with automakers to roll out fuel options, including hydrogen, in a logical manner. Cities with serious air quality problems - NYC, Atlanta, most of SoCal - must provide appropriate incentives to replace their parking lots of polluting cars with hydrogen-powered vehicles. Priced right, the public would buy it. Offered to fleets first, hydrogen vehicles would probably sell in record numbers due to their superior reliability (assuming, of course, that the vehicles are designed and built to take full advantages of hydrogen combustion: no catalytic converter, no sludge buildup, negligible oil contamination = few oil changes, no spark plug changes, no fuel filter, no fuel injector cleaning, ....) How many high-mileage drivers appreciate lowered maintenance costs? There are many out there. The Sequel is the best looking cab that i've seen, ever, and if it's designed as a multi-fuel capable vehicle (CNG and Hydrogen), its appeal will broaden beyond the metropolitan markets too. Build it, GM!