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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 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.
Design News had an article about this type of car in January. You can find it here.
Umm, you have any idea how much energy the average car uses up? If you drive 12,000 miles a year, at 20 miles/gallon, that's 600 gallons of oil or about 14.5 barrels, energy content = about 25,000 kWh per year (see this Conversion table). So your car is using about 4 times as much energy as your house. If you drive a lot and have a gas guzzler it's probably 10 times as much or more.
GM's idea is actually a pretty good one - it could easily be much cheaper to power your house from the fuel cell in your car than from the electric grid (high efficiency and no transmission losses, and no middle-men).
Energy: time to change the picture.
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).
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?
Yes.
The energy storage density of batteries is horrible. Even for the strange and wondrous experimental designs that you won't ever see because they're expensive or run at 300 degrees C or what-have-you.
Fuel for fuel cells, on the other hand, has an energy storage density approaching that of gasoline (better by weight, considerably less by volume for hydrogen, which is a royal pain to store; comparable to gasoline on both counts for methanol, but that's a pain to re-form).
Fuel storage density has been the limiting factor for the design of electric cars, so this makes one heck of a difference.
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?
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.
>people haven't been too impressed with the performance of the hybrids, from what I've heard
If you have time, look into the Prius area on Yahoo Groups. You'll hear from a lot of people who are impressed.
The Prius needs computer control to keep from lighting the tires when you pull out. If it weren't limited by software, the electric drive motor would deliver 258 foot-pounds at zero rpm. Once you start moving, the power curve is impressively smooth. Toyota held it to a 12.5 second 0-60 time, partly for economy and partly because the Prius is aimed at the boring-sedan market.
"Horsepower sells cars, torque wins races" is the old cliche. Electric motors are superb for low-end torque.
Hybrids are indeed a transitional technology, but I suspect mass-produced long-lived fuel cells are more than a few years away. Looking forward to them!
Bullshit.
.. bad styling. No excuses. There's no reason why we all went from airplane-inspired sloped and rounded bodies with tailfins to. . . bricks on wheels.
Don't tell me that the Cadillac Escalade is more aerodynamic than:
1959 Porsche 356
1965 VW Karmann Ghia
1949 VW Beetle
1969 Corvette Stingray
In the 70's we sacrificed good styling for.
Perhaps safety concerns? Compare the 1973 Porsche 911 with the 1974 Porsche 911 - with the new federally mandated 5mph bumpers. (compare Detroit's changes to meet those federal mandates). Not much difference. Compare deathraps like the 70's Pinto, to the Volvo. I don't think that safety, aerodynamics, or efficiency played much of a role if any in the styling changes of cars from the 60's to the 70's and 80's - other than, at least in America, it was - more mass, more internal space - up through the late 70's where it was, "oh crap, the Japs are kicking our silly asses, lets make some econoboxes that look like Hondas" (hence the Chevy Citation and Ford Escort). And THEN, styling was dictated by - "cut weight at all costs".
Any cars with ANY design sense engineered into them at all in the past 30 years?
Maybe the late Camaro. The 'Vette. But both of those suffer from really shoddy interior work. On the Ford side theres: The Mustang, which looked like a big Escort for most of the 80's. The Taurus was a good, and honest effort - though it's dated now.
The RX-7, (no longer available in the US). The Miata (probably the most successful sports car of the 90's).
The Prowler (not a *real* production car).
The Viper (also not a *real* production car).
The only other example is that PT Cruiser. Which is pretty neat looking, I guess, if you're into that sort of thing.
But the rest of the auto industry is a vast wasteland of "variation on a theme" - econobox, sedan, SUV/Truck.
As far as other so-called "improvements"?
Coming out of the 80's I think was the best thing - 80's cars sucked so bad in every way possible, I'd say that overall, there's not one example that was as good as it's 70's or 60's counterpart. Especially American cars. Fragile and delicate. Incredibly unreliable and expensive. Having to smog-test one of these cars was a reason to buy a new one, because even on a car just 3 or 4 years old, you'd end up dropping hundreds of dollars replacing computers, broken sensors, cracked plastic ductwork, etc.
I think only in the past 5 years have there been newer cars that are compellingly as good as cars from the late 60's or 70's. All the hacks they had to put on cars to meet efficiency and pollution standards finally have the bugs worked out - though there's still a lack of simple engineering which makes it nearly impossible to maintain or modify one of these beasts yourself. Repair or restore? Forget it.
Then plug price into the equation - and for your AVERAGE car, you're talking about $20,000 - for anything special, even remotely above average, you're talking about $25,000+
Go getchyerself an old 60's classic, for anywhere from $5000-$20,000, you get power, maintainability, hackability, classic design, like nothing available on the market to day for that price.
New cars are for suckers.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I'm no scientist, but it seems to me that hydrogen might make a bigger bang than diesel fuel.
:)
That's why you're not a scientist. Diesel fuel is a hell of a lot more explosive than hydrogen.
There's a reason that gasoline vehicles are allowed thru tunnels but campers carrying a propane bottle are prohibited.
Yes, and that reason is because propane is heavier than air. If the tank leaked, you'd have this nice puddle of gaseous propane floating around, never really disapating. Imagine that x1000. Gasoline fumes are lighter than air and will disapate much faster.
Although why you suddenly brought up propane when the article/discussion is talking about hydrogen, I really don't know. They're about as different as.. well, gasoline and propane
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
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.
Bah!
What would I like to see succeed?
How about the McMaster Motor? Two moving parts, light weight, innovative fuel source (but could be run off of steam in a pinch!), simple design - similar to a
Nutating Disk Displacement Meter.
Or, how about the Ball Piston Engine? An interesting design that looks more like a ball bearing than an engine. The nice thing about the engine is the "standard" parts - ie, all the cylinders look the same and operate the same, parts can be swapped almost at will. I would bet one of these could be prototyped using parts from Home Depot.
Yet another twist on engines, The Henry Engine is a rotary steam engine, not a turbine.
These are the kind of mechanics I want to see in a future car. Something different, maybe based on older tech (I am sure all of these examples I have given are based on older principles/ideas).
Another kind of engine, one that I think would actually make for a better and lighter hybrid vehicle: the free-piston engine. Basically this engine consists of a piston that is fired on both side (alternatingly), with the shaft that extends through the piston driving linear hydraulic pumps, with the hydraulic fluid being conveyed in the normal manner to power hydraulic motors which drive the wheels. I would suggest that instead of the piston driving pumps (more indirection=more friction=more heat=wasted energy), make the piston a magnet of sorts, wrap a coil around the cylinder (or make the cylinder be the coil), and extract the electricity directly as the piston is bounced back and forth between the ends. I would think such a system could be made to use the fuel in a super-efficient fashion (not perfect, but better than a standard piston engine). I can think of a number of design issues (ie, how to make a piston be a magnet with the heat of combustion working at odds, among others) - but these can be worked out.
Think about how (relatively) simple a free-piston engine is - a tube, a piston inside the tube, and inlet/outlet ports (and controlling valves) plus spark plugs at the ends. I would think a good spud-gun builder could build a prototype (that would run for a while, then melt from the heat) from ABS/PVC pipe, sprinkler valves, etc from Home Depot - make the piston from a chunk of wood with steel end plates, magnets set in holes around the edge, wrap wire around the middle. Control the solenoid valves and plugs with reed magnet switches, maybe some relays (or Hall Effect sensors) - hmm, if I had the time I would do it myself!
Someone should try to build this - I guarantee you will get /.'ed in seconds if you do (heck, it will be a better story than another one about case mods)...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
As you say, hydrogen can be produced in a variety of different ways. Anything from fossil fuels to algae to windmills. This means that it doesn't matter where the energy comes from. When fossil fuel is cheap, your car can run on hydrogen produced from fossil fuel. When geothermal is cheap, your car can use geothermal hydrogen. The market will decide -- we would no longer be 'locked in' to a single energy source. Hydrogen is to gasoline what Java is to assembly language, if you will.
I've heard this before: imagine powering your house with the excess electricity generated by your car... what are they talking about? Cars don't generate power.
What they meant was, you could drive your car to the hydrogen refueling station, then drive it home and use it as a generator to power your house. Of course this only works until your car runs low on hydrogen, then it's off to the station again to refuel....
So what power are these cars supposed to be harnessing? Great reservoirs of hydrogen of which I am unaware?
You'll note that 75% of the Earth's surface is covered by H2O... which contains a lot of H. Of course, it takes some energy to pull the H away from the 2 O's, but that's okay, because there is a huge nuclear reactor about 93 million miles away that provides us with as much energy as we could ever need, 24 hours a day. Actually making practical use of these resources will require some engineering, but all the ingredients are there in abundance. And for the shorter term, there are less direct methods of producing hydrogen (as noted above).
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.