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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."

24 of 275 comments (clear)

  1. Hydrogen is not free by augustz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Despite folks who see hydrogen as free, current process require significant amounts of energy to get at hydrogen.

    So you are in some senses shifting pollution to a different location (and hopefully reducing it through scale). The advant of a clean and cheap way to get massive amounts of hydrogen is I understand a ways off.

    Love to get links / info to the contrary.

    - August

    1. Re:Hydrogen is not free by hex1848 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Despite folks who see hydrogen as free, current process require significant amounts of energy to get at hydrogen.

      This article was posted on slashdot last week..

      "The most promising source of the hydrogen may be geological "traps" similar to those now drilled for natural gas. Professor Freund said: "One of these natural hydrogen fields is already known to exist in North America, and extends from Canada to Kansas."

      Apparently mining these geological "traps" would be no more energy intensive then current natural gas mining. And with such a vast supply right here in the United States, it like this is an inevitable migration.

      I wonder If the oil companies are starting to look into hydrogen as the next money maker. They have the infrastructure (gas stations, transportation) to do it, it seems like it would be a no brainier to jump right in.

    2. Re:Hydrogen is not free by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 4, Insightful
      So you are in some senses shifting pollution to a different location (and hopefully reducing it through scale).

      I think you are underestimating the value of centralizing production of energy. It is not feasible to produce nuclear-powered cars. However, we can get the same effect simply by making hydrogen-powered zero-emission vehicles and producing the hydrogen with nuclear power. The benefit of centralizing energy production is total freedom in how the energy is produced. It also easier, cheaper, and better for the environment to have one big, expensive, highly advanced pollution scrubber at a fossil-fuel powered plant than to have jillions of less-efficient catylitic converters all over the place, and eventually taking up space in landfills.

      --
      main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
    3. Re:Hydrogen is not free by augustz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I understand, but to get the electricity to perform the hydrolysis you have to generate it, usually using some pretty dirty fuel. I think it is clear that cheap usable hydrogen is not going to becoming from hydrolysis. Some of these other methods look excellent.

    4. Re:Hydrogen is not free by HalfFlat · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think that is what is usually called a straw-man argument.

      Few if any people are promoting the idea of electric-only cars powered by traditional batteries, and refilled by plugging it into the wall socket. For the very reasons you describe, it would be expensive and ineffective.

      As described in the article, and often on slashdot, the idea is to have a fuel cell in the car which uses hydrogen very efficiently. The problem then becomes a matter of storing and generating the hydrogen. Storing it (and there are a number of options) is expensive but possible. The fact that there are working experimental hydrogen-based cars demonstrates this. It is a one-off cost though, so shouldn't be taken too seriously.

      Generating the hydrogen can be done at the site of another form of power generation. Even if this is done with coal and oil plants (which of course is a very poor way to create power to begin with when compared with (say) natural gas) one eliminates the losses due to power transmission etc. Further, the pollution that eminates from the burning of fossil fuels is much more easily contained at a single site (like a power station) than it is when it's generated by 234723849 cars.

      There are much more efficient ways of generating hydrogen though, from natural gas or methane directly, which completely bypass the very dirty and relatively inefficient coal and oil power production systems.

      The only reason why hybrid cars are the best solution right now, is that there is a lack of a hydrogen supply infrastructure. Fix that, and hydrogen as energy storage comes into its own.
      Again, as described in the article, a promising avenue to this is through converting local bus services to hydrogen-based, which even in the absence of an established hydrogen infrastructure, can then be cheaper to run. This in turn creates a market for distribution,

  2. Finally! by antis0c · · Score: 5, Funny

    [Refering to what includes Hydrogen] Examples include petroleum, natural gas and biomass -- a nice way of saying plant and animal waste.

    Finally! I can power my DeLorean off a rotting banana peal, coffee grounds, and a quarter can of malt beer.

    --

    ..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
  3. Oh? by ShaniaTwain · · Score: 3, Interesting

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

    --
    Starsucks
  4. Honda Civic Hybrid by noodlez84 · · Score: 5, Informative

    It may be interesting to some of you that Honda is releasing (for its 2003 model year) a hydrid version of its Honda Civic, named Honda Civic Hybrid. It is a four-door sedan with gas mileage in the upper-40s / lower-50s.

    This proves that electric hydrids are not only available technologically-speaking, but that they are commercially viable. Now imagine what would happen if a tax break (perhaps coinciding with George W. Bush's huge breaks) were offered for electric hybrid vehicles. It would stimulate the economy _and_ lower taxes. Of course, the oil industry wouldn't be too happy because of lower profits. Boo-hoo. Gas mileage has been going _down_ since 1986, when it peaked in the upper-20s (about 29).

    BTW, you might want to read a review of the Honda Civic.

    1. Re:Honda Civic Hybrid by Herbmaster · · Score: 3, Informative

      This is cool and all, but consider the 2003 Civic Hybrid against my car, the 2002 Civic HX:
      The Hybrid gets a few more features (ABS, cd player, power windows) and a whopping 13/7 more MPG of fuel efficiency.
      My car gets most of the same features (including automatic (CVT) trans and AC), 20-25 more HP, for about $5000 less.
      Losing 25 horsepower while gaining about 150 lbs, on a car that wasn't particularly muscular to start out with, with the price difference in the wrong direction, isn't especially "viable". At current gas prices, $5000 = 650000 miles before you break even going with the hybrid. No.

      --
      I'm not a smorgasbord.
  5. 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. :-)

  6. Toyota Prius by fo0bar · · Score: 3, Informative
    (No, arouse.net is not a porn site :)

    On Tuesday I bought a Toyota Prius, mentioned in the article. Very nice car for the dollar. Hybrid gas/electric car, uses the gas engine only when needed. In fact, I still haven't gotten used to the fact that the onboard computer will actually turn off the engine while driving, when it is not needed.

    Gas mileage on the sticker is very impressive. 52 city, 45 highway. No, that is not a typo. It actually performs better in traffic, mostly because slow acceleration is almost exclusively under electric power. Coasting and deceleration use regenerative braking to recharge the battery, meaning you never have to plug the car into an external power source.

    This car is the perfect geek toy -- many functions are performed via the touchscreen LCD screen, and all the other displays are 100% digital. Sound system is very good for a stock system, and you gotta love the static cling sticker on the back: Eat my voltage.

    Sticker price was about $21k, and from my experience, has been worth it. I'm currently getting about 42MPG according to the consumption display. More pics are located here.

  7. Honda Dualnote by raygundan · · Score: 3, Funny

    Is what I think you're looking for. I saw the same article-- now THAT is a hybrid that would sell in the states. 400hp at 42mpg!!!

    Now, cut it in half and make me one that gets 200hp at 84mpg and I'm sold. :)

  8. 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.

  9. 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

  10. Your efficiencies miss the point by Goonie · · Score: 3, Insightful
    As you've pointed out, hybrid cars are more fuel-efficient than pure gasoline-powered cars. What you seem to have missed is *why* - basically, they don't waste fuel idling at traffic lights, and they turn the energy from braking back into battery charge rather than pissing it away as heat.

    Any half-intelligently designed pure electric or fuel-cell electric car is going to do exactly the same thing, and therefore your in-practice efficiency is going to go up - I'd hazard a guess to the point where the energy-efficiency is about the same.

    --

    Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
    --Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
  11. Turbine engines failed miserably. by rebelcool · · Score: 3, Informative
    One year an indy 500 car tried a turbine engine, it was terrible.

    The main reason is that turbines don't rev like normal engines do. They're designed to be kept at a constant speed for long amounts of time.
    They also accelerate to a higher speed slower, as well as decelerate slower (an innate characteristic of turbines)

    Recent advances of CVT's (continously variable transmissions) can help ease the inherent problem with turbines, but its hardly worth taking time and research away from the hybrid and fuel cell cars, which are truly the future of automobiles (electric motors are vastly more efficient and powerful than combustions), to go back to something that was tried and failed already.

    --

    -

  12. Protectionist conspiracy theory by frankie · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Who makes hybrid gas/electric cars right now? Toyota and Honda.

    Who showed hydrogen concept cars early this year? Ford and GM. When do they expect to be ready for market? 10 years.

    Which technology is really better? They're comparable .

    What did President Bush decide to do? End support for hybrids and spend money on fuel cells instead.

    Connect the dots?

  13. Like a 4-door Insight... read about it at... by aquarian · · Score: 3, Informative

    The new hybrid Civic is like a 4-door Insight. I believe the main difference in the drivetrain is that it uses a 4 cylinder motor instead of a 3. It has a CVT transmission, and I assume a manual too. You can read more about it at www.evworld.com.

  14. Promotion and FUD in the Same Article... by NeuroManson · · Score: 3, Informative

    "Hydrogen can neither be mined nor found through exploration.": Wrong.

    Recently NASA discovered that large concentrations of hydrogen gas exist in the earth's rocky crust (as much as several hundred pounds of hydrogen in a cubic meter of rock). It can be mined, and as NASA has proven HAS been found through exploration. Mind you, not the same variety as "Lets blow a hole in the ground and see what comes up", but still far more available than previously believed. Essentially left over gasses from the formation of the solar system.

    Mining can still be environmentally damaging if not inefficient, but still can be much more economical than existing means of hydrogen extraction.

    --
    Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
  15. 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

  16. 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....

  17. Some more links for folks ... by felicity · · Score: 3, Informative
    I own a Toyota Prius, and love every minute of driving it. I have been promoting hybrids at work and came up with this list of URLs about the various mass-produced "green"/alternate fuel vehicles available today. There are also some other links associated with these cars (fuel efficiency guides, etc.) I know it's not a complete list, but it's a decent representation of what's out there. Here you go ... :)

    There's a good amount of information available about clean vehicles at:

  18. Re:Hydrogen is like Electricity by mamba-mamba · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Your implied criticism is entirely unwarranted. Christine Sloane obviously gets the idea that hydrogen is an energy storage system, much more than it is a new fuel. She calls attention to this fact in the statement you quote by emphasizing that before you can use hydrogen, you need to make hydrogen, and the energy for doing that has to come from somewhere else.

    It is not the least bit trivial (from an energy standpoint) to "make" hydrogen out of water. You always have to put in more energy that you will get back when you use the hydrogen. So when she says "you can make hydrogen from almost anything" she is making a statement that is reasonably accurate but hopefully won't confuse the masses who don't have a good knowledge of thermodynamics and simple chemistry.

    MM
    --

    --
    By including this sig, the copyright holders of this work or collection unreservedly place it in the public domain.
  19. Re:Its all about power, baby... by mrv · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well, with the 350 N-m/258 lb.-ft. @ 0-400 rpm of torque available from my Prius' electric motors from a stop, there isn't a car that can pass me from a standing stop (say, a red light) unless I let it...

    A common adage is horsepower sells cars, but torque wins races...

    Info about my Toyota Prius (including MPG charts and such): http://www.kluge.net/~felicity/prius.php

    --
    -mrv