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Hybrid Powertrains and Hydrogen Fuel Cells

Posted by michael on from the stick-shift dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes "Nice article from cars.com detailing a panel dicussion with reps from Chrysler Group, Ford, General Motors and American Honda agreeing that hybrid powertrains and hydrogen fuel cells are the future of automotive propulsion, and discussing their companies' different approaches in both areas."

6 of 275 comments (clear)

  1. Oh? by ShaniaTwain · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Please oh please, whatever you do just don't make them like this

    --
    Starsucks
  2. Blessed Altruism by layingMantis · · Score: 4, Interesting
    "GM has taken a little different tack in hybrids," Sloane explained. The researchers asked themselves, "What is it we're trying to solve or fix? Is it that our customers are demanding higher fuel economy? The honest answer to that is no. The cheapest fluid you can get at a gas station is what? The gasoline. It's sure cheaper per gallon than this is," she said, raising some bottled water from the dais. "But we do have a societal interest in reducing the use of fuel. So maybe it's the places where you use a lot of it that you should try to make the reductions."

    Heh. This mildly amusing, and mildy insulting, bit of spin-doctoring aside, it's good to see that the American auto makers aren't actually light-years behind their Japanese counterparts anymore. They've closed the gap to just a few generations. :-)

  3. The Limits of Fossil Fuel Tech by saihung · · Score: 5, Interesting

    While I like these ideas, projects like this make me think that we haven't even approached the limits of efficiency in fossil fuel engines. This thing might be a concept, but VW made it now, it runs on normal diesel fuel, and gets nearly 240 MPG. This is the kind of thing that we need to explore in the near-term. While I think that pie-in-the-sky exotics are sexy, I also think that they won't be ready for production or have a working support infrastructure for years - here is something we could do now to cut our fuel usage.

  4. Hydrogen On Demand by niola · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This one company I have been keeping my eye on called Millennium Cell has a technology called Hydrogen on Demand that seems pretty cool. They invented a way to store hydrogen in a borax solution and extract it only when needed to generate energy. The cool thing about Millennium Cell's technology is that they figured out a lot of other issues competing fuel cell companies have not. For example, they can retrofit an internal combustion engine to run on hydrogen, and it's exhaust would be 100% free of carbon monoxide. They also even worked in gas stations into the equation and have figured out how to retrofit them to "refill" the hydrogen fuel cells. Also of note is that their fuel cells have a range similar to that of a full tank of gas, and takes up slightly smaller area of space. Definitely some cool R&D going on out there...

    --Jon

  5. One interesting point re: pollution by ghjm · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Several people have pointed out that electric cars simply shift the point where pollution is generated from the car to the power plant. But there's a big difference between electric and hydrogen in this regard: Hydrogen can be shipped.

    With wall-powered electric cars, the power generation has to occur relatively nearby - say, within a few hundred miles. With hydrogen, the power generation can occur anywhere in the world. Hydrogen canisters can be transported via container shipping.

    What this means is that if the U.S. were to convert to hydrogen power, it would allow all the power generation (and therefore pollution) to be moved offshore. In essence, all the pollution from the U.S. automotive fleet could be shipped to the Third World, in exchange for hard currency - which is the traditional method used for getting rid of the rest of the "not in my backyard" unpleasant underside of the affluent U.S. (and for that matter Western European) lifestyle.

    Economically, it's a win all round - though of course environmentalists will probably disagree.

    -Graham

  6. Re:Why not turbine engines? by Keeper · · Score: 3, Interesting

    As others have stated, turbines arn't that great at accelerating/decelerating.

    However, at one point chrysler was investigating using them in a hybrid vehicle, where the turbine was essentially an electric generator and the drivetrain was powered by electics.

    Didn't do too bad, averaged about 50mpg, but the gas/electric hybrid they were toying with was able to achieve 70mpg.

    Too bad they havn't decided to bring any of that technology to the market....