GM's Billion-Dollar Fuel-Cell Bet

nakhla writes "Wired is running a lengthy article detailing GM's billion-dollar effort to invent a radically new fuel cell vehicle. The interesting part is that GM's engineers are no longer trying to squeeze a fuel cell engine into a traditional car design. Instead, they're building a completely new type of car from the ground up. No gears, clutch, braking hardware, etc. It's all drive-by-wire (computer controlled). Even the engines are located in each of the 4 wheels. It's a fascinating read, and the article outlines economic reasons for such a car, as well as environmental concerns and practical uses (imagine powering your house with the excess electricity generated by your car). For anyone remotely interested in the future of automotive technology, this article is very interesting."

Comments

Re:Doomed to fail

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know how you can drive your Ford Expedition on the same road as busses, motor homes and cargo trucks. How can you drive a 5,000 pound death trap? You, my friend, need a bigger vehicle.

Re:Doomed to fail

[Reality Master 101]

I'm waiting for my "65 tons of American pride" Canyonero.

Just waiting for them to repeal the 2nd law

[NearlyHeadless]

I love this quote from the article:

What if you could make your own hydrogen out of water, right in the garage? The technology is already available; you electrolyze water by more or less running a fuel cell in reverse.At the moment, this takes more electricity than the hydrogen would ultimately generate.

I just can't wait until they can fix that problem!

I can see the headlines now....

[ColdrenX]

In recent news, another fatal car crash happened on the interestate, do to a malfunction within the onboard computer... Spokesmen at Microsoft claim it is due to hardware problems, and claim their software had no liability in the inncident..

In other news, the LinuxDrive program has advanced in leaps and bounds, and can now, with version 2.5, even STOP your car... too bad the beta testers of 2.4 didn't wait a week or two.. [fake news-anchor laugh]."

Re:Let me clear this up for you

[browman]

> That's why you're not a scientist. Diesel fuel is a hell of a lot more explosive than hydrogen.

I agree on this one, having seen a hydrogen explosion first hand. We had a cannister of the stuff in a chemistry lab back at school. Some idiot knocked it over and the valve broke.

We evacuated the lab, and a few minutes later some spark caused it to ignite (probably the heating thermostat or something). Just a loud bang and a couple of imploded windows. We left our books in the panic, and nothing was even slightly charred. The fire brigade arrived shortly after the event, but there was just no damage to speak of.

The hydrogen bottle (about 4 foot tall), was apparently full before the incident and empty after we returned to the lab.