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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."
the main reason alternative cars dont sell is because they are UGLY! give me an attractive design and I will consider it...
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Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
it looks and sounds pretty cool, but until they make one w/ some serious power, 4wd and some serious ground clearance. I'm sticking w/ what I have...
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The fact that they feel the need to reinvent something that has over 100 years of refinement tells me they are doing something wrong.
I don't know where to start on this really.
The abacus had thousands of years of refinement, care to trade in your calculator or computer?
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Stupid loophole standing in the way of progress.
There's a $2000 federal income tax deduction available if you buy an alternative fuel vehicle. And yes, hybrid vehicles do qualify.
As far as the loophole you specify -- there are efforts underway to change the wording so that hybrid vehicles do qualify. And some of the companies pushing for the change want a vehicle that uses as little as 2.5% of it's fuel from an "alternative" source to be considered hybrid. That's a load of shit and would actually be counterproductive.
So be careful of what you ask for. You may get it.
Frankly, hybrids shouldn't qualify. It doesn't solve the problem. Unless, of course, you like rewarding half-assed solutions in everything else in life.
The discontinued EV1 was a joke -- it batteries spread throughout the vehicle and was available only on a lease basis.
I've head Lead/Acid batteries are 95-95% recyclable...countries outside the US use standard battery packs that are swapped in minutes for recharging, replacement, etc.
What kind of cleanup/toxicity issues do fuel cells have, considering all of the elements used (catalysts/fuel/fuel generation).
Is this plan really a better bet than electric cars with high density batteries and some type of remote hydrogen powerplant running the juice over cables?
I've always had the sneaking feeling that fuel cell technology was just another way for the petrochemical industries to keep their jobs when the wells run dry.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
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The one very big and very ignored part of any new durable mass market product is repair. Anyone can build a car from the ground, the trick is to build a car that utilizes fuel cells using parts that are mass produced and easily repaired, fixed, serviced, etc.. For example, GM loves to build cars with very expensive, shiny, weak pieces of plastic for grill covers. When involed in a TA it has to be replaced 95% of the time with a $600 part with $150 labor.
GM is not building the next generation of Fuel Cell based cars to help out the enviroment. They are just like many greedy corporations, they will make money of the parts, service and maintance industry for a fuel cell powered car. Remember folks, industrial factories are still the leading pollution and natural resource draining offenders.
So before you get all green and go blow 20K on a honda insight or some other enviromental friendly car, really consider the true impact/benefit of supporting the automotive industry.
"Get them before they get....
By your logic, plasma TV's make no sense because CRT TV's have had 50 years of refinement.
Here's an idea: How about not doing it until you have a powerplant that at least comes close to matching the efficiency and performance of a gasoline motor?
Match efficiency? Everyone knows that the problem with fuel cells is performance and it looks like thay will beat that by the time they release.I think the article makes a great point in that you can't expect to simply pull an ICE out of a car and plunk in a fuel cell and expect it to perform anywhere near par. This is not necessarily because of any technological deficiency of the fuel cells, but because of hundreds of design elements that are best-case trade-offs for an internal combustion design.
Unfortunately, the world's unconscious is so used to the emergent design brought about by these design elements that it's difficult for them to look at a radically new design and still think "car".
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
Match the efficiency and performance? Sure. No problem. First, define efficiency in this context. Don't forget to include waste products in your calculations.
Performance? For how big a motor? How long a trip?
The bottom line is that no, we can't build an electric motor with a self-contained power source that has the torque, horsepower, and range of an equivalent gas motor. Yet. So, clearly, we should scrap any attempts to do so and just keep on using internal combustion.
Right. If you think that, go sit with the Luddites - you're just as bad.
As far as your whines about looking like a car - well, there's a few thousand home built electric vehicles that look like cars because they're built from one. There's the new Honda Civic Hybrid which looks just like any other Civic on the road. And there's more coming down the pipe.
As far as your whines that they have to scrap everything - hello! Wake up! You don't HAVE to scrap everything. You can continue building them exactly the way they've been built for 100 years. But why? A major design consideration for the past 100 years has been "where the hell do I put this engine?". Eliminate the engine, the radiator, the fuel tank, the drive train, and so forth and you've eliminated everything outside of the passanger compartment that you had to design for. Sure, you have different stuff that has to come into consideration, but that's the entire point - it's different. You can optimize layouts in a different manner and potentially get a lot of cost and efficiency savings that way. Who said anything about using bicycle tires? Or having the car weigh 500 lbs empty (hint - the fuel cells will weigh more than that, period).
The safety considerations and regulations that have come about in the past 100 years aren't going to be scrapped either (unless, of course, GM manages to get the new vehicle classified as a light truck/SUV -- in which case about half of those safety requirements are scrapped).
IIRC, cars are required to have mechanical links to things like steering and braking, for the simple reason that if the computer controls fail, you would still have some measure of control over your vehicle.
I've personally had the power steering and power braking fail on a few cars that I've owned. If there was no mechanical backup. Not a fun experience, but at least I was able to stop/steer, albiet at with somewhat less control.
The thought of riding in a car whose steering/braking suddenly fails completely with no backup makes me shudder.
Think For Yourself. Question Authority.
Imagine the terrorists delight at a city bus carrying a huge bottle of the stuff.
Imagine a terrorist holding a can of soup that is really a bomb. Listen to what you are saying. Anything can be used as a weapon, and any weapon can be disguised as nearly anything. I suggest you watch out, maybe that glass bottle the guy next to you is holding is really filled with an airborne virus intended to wipe out everyone in a 5 mile radius once he unscrews the lid.
Just because something CAN be used for evil, doesn't mean that it doesn't have 1000000 legitimate uses that justify its production. Should we ban hands and feet next? Afterall, they can be very deadly weapons.
What?
The EV1 was available in lead-acid and NiMH versions. The lead-acid got a respectable 75-100 miles per charge and the NiMH got up to 180 miles per charge. The joke was that GM wasn't serious about promoting, selling or advertising them. (Quite the opposite, in fact.)
What kind of cleanup/toxicity issues do fuel cells have, considering all of the elements used (catalysts/fuel/fuel generation).
Consider that for many years to come, hydrogen will be produced by splitting existing petroleum products. Same dependence on foreign oil, same refinery pollution.
Is this plan really a better bet than electric cars with high density batteries and some type of remote hydrogen powerplant running the juice over cables?
If the fuel and power companies would have spent these billions on ramping up production of advanced battery chemistries (NiMH, LiIon, NiZn) instead of beating up on fuel cells, the problem would have been licked already.
But we're talking oil companies here.
I've always had the sneaking feeling that fuel cell technology was just another way for the petrochemical industries to keep their jobs when the wells run dry.
It also keeps the aerospace and defense industries running. (No reason to have wars over there if we don't need their oil.)
Imagine the terrorists delight at a city bus carrying a huge bottle of the stuff.
Imagine thousands of rolling tankers of gasoline rolling through our tunnels. Or our neighborhood streets, right by our children's schools! What about the children? Bombs everywhere! We must not let gasoline ever be carried where terraists can ignite them.
Seriously, hydrogen is a safer material than gasoline. It doesn't evaporate the same way, so it's harder to ignite in some ways. -- and no, the Hindenburg wasn't a hydrogen disaster, it was a metallic oxide paint disaster. The Hindenburg's paint job burned like a fireworks show, which caused the insane flamage you see in the pictures.
Hydrogen, when ignited, tends to burn upwards, unlike gasoline, which spreads like napalm, which is just a more jellied form of gasoline.
If gasoline did not exist, and were an alternative fuel, it would never be approved for general use.
It's not the actual danger, but the perception of danger that drives human choice. So gasoline is next to the Fritos display at gas stations. And a million parents a day strap their babies into super-safe car seats set inches from a colossal tank of liquid napalm, and no one ever notices the incredible irony.
Because freedom from guilt is a big luxury, and because a lot of your early adopters will be rich people with strong environmental sympathies.
So don't build a fuel-cell-powered crappy econobox. Build a fuel-cell-powered Lexus or Suburban.
Quiet, tons of torque, guilt-free.
Heck, with the engines in the wheel hubs you could build something with the offroad capabilites of a Hummer for a lot less, because the powertrain would be so greatly simplified.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Want 50MPG?
A 0-60 time better than the average car?
It's called a motorcycle.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Alternatively-powered cars can not and will not make a majority sell in the world so long as hydrocarbons exit to burn.
A bold statement? Perhaps. But realistic? I think so.
You thought M$ has a stranglehold on the computing industry -- can you even conceive of the grip that the hydrocarbon industry has on the automobile industry? Internal combustion engines are going to be around for a looong time, my friend.
Nothing to say of the efforts and successes that we've had in making alternate fuels work. Good job, good science, but it won't fly on the market. Years ago science had developed the 50mpg engine...where is it? Oh, right, Geo Metros that sound like a bumblebee and have 2 cylinders. Big success there.
Is the oil industry ready to back down in favor of more environmentally-friendly fuels? Right. Tell an oil tycoon to shut down his wells because he'd be doing the world a favor and he'll tell you what to put in your pipe and where to smoke it.
Consider this, my fellow ingenious geeks: Which is better, Microsoft or GNU/Linux? Is that a resounding vote for Linux I detect? Ok, then...so why isn't it the dominant OS?
Which is better: internal combustion or alternate fuels? Alternates? Then why isn't that the market standard?
Fact is, folks: A speeding train is really tough to stop. A speeding train with the combined momentum of the oil industry, automobile industry, and lobbyists is even harder to stop. Pure money still speaks volumes and will for years, as long as the public has enough Preparation H and is eased into high prices slowly enough.
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Now I don't know about you, but I ride a bicycle, and bicycles are dead quiet. The problem with this is that pedestrians keep stepping off the pavement (sidewalk) right in front of me (as in, someone did it yesterday).
One thing that's quite good about cars is that they tend to make a bit of noise, and faster and bigger ones (the ones you really don't want to get hit by) tend to make the most. Well, nothing is louder than those little 2-stroke hairdryers, ok but there is a trend there.
I do like the idea of these electric cars, but people are just not gonna hear them coming. I know you are supposed to actually look before you cross the road, but people just don't.