Fuel-Cell Car Racing Series Aims To Spur Green Motoring

Anonymous Cow writes "The world's first international fuel-cell powered motor racing series kicked off in Rotterdam over the weekend. The organisers hope that 'Formula Zero,' like Formula 1, can become a forum for competing technology as much as anything else, helping green consumer cars to become better."

Comments

Definitely would help image

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a good idea, part of the problem with non gasoline cars is the image, and cars that look like the prius don't help this.
So if people can see electric cars with real performance that would even surpass the petrol counterpart it should make people more likely to change.

Not pompous enough

[Swizec]

People aren't going to take green technology seriously until it wins in rally or 24 hour le mans or somethign similarly awesome to win. Having to make a special competition just for green cars seems like, well, these cars are cool and all, but just not actually competitive with already existant technology. This isn't good for the public image.

Re:Not pompous enough

[Hektor_Troy]

Well, diesel engines have already won Le Mans three years in a row (only been allowed for three years) despite having a smaller fuel tank than the gasoline cars, yet the public opinion is that diesel engines are useless for any kind of fast car and especially race cars.

So no, winning Le Mans in a "green" car is hardly going to change the image.

Re:Not pompous enough

[theM_xl]

I can't help but note they carefully avoid answering how long it actually takes to refill the batteries beyond 'over night'. That's not going to help much if I find the battery's low when I want to be at home for dinner and find the battery's a bit low.

Re:Not pompous enough

[Endo13]

Remember when cordless drill batteries took an hour or two for a full charge? Maybe not, but I do. Now you can get chargers that do a full charge in less than 15 minutes.

Typically technology has to start gaining some popularity before there's going to be these types of improvements made.

Sure, it'll take an overnight charge for now, but that will improve with time. I'd guess they can probably get it down to an hour or two within the next couple years. That's still not so short that you can just stop at a charging station on your way home from work, but it's short enough that you can recharge while you're grabbing groceries or shopping at the mall. And given the distribution system of electricity compared to petrol, I think it's fairly likely there will be options like that available.

Zero Emissions?

[allcar]

Do fuel cells really produce no carbon emissions?
Granted, the cars themselves should produce nothing but water, but how do we produce the hydrogen? Does that not require energy? I simply don't believe that all of the hydrogen plants are powered by nuclear or hydroelectric energy.
I am not against these ideas at all, but let's not get carried away. I've no doubt that fuel cells are much cleaner than internal combustion, but provide the real facts, please.

Re:Zero Emissions?

[Swizec]

Why did this get moded Troll? Concerns over just how much energy is being spent in actually PRODUCING these types of green cars are very real and shouldn't be censored just because they go against the current mob mentality.

My sources may be wrong, but I've read that producing green cars is more wasteful than they end up saving. For now at least, but if we ignore this issue improvement will never be made.

Re:Zero Emissions?

[vertinox]

Granted, the cars themselves should produce nothing but water, but how do we produce the hydrogen? Does that not require energy? I simply don't believe that all of the hydrogen plants are powered by nuclear or hydroelectric energy.

Well here is the deal:

1. Even if you have to use a coal power plant to produce the hydrogen, its extremely more efficient than using petroleum in terms of releasing CO2 in the atmosphere.

2. And speaking of, this also means we don't have to rely on foreign oil.

As a small time investor, one of the odd things I've noticed is that currently the Brazilian economy is booming. Most Brazilian stocks are going through the roof. Now it could be that the US and China just aren't doing as good as they used to, but it also dawned on my that Brazil has almost ceased the need to import energy from foreign sources due to its aggressive ethanol campaign.

Now, IMO ethanol isn't the solution for the US, but anything that reduces the need to pay foreign sources for energy simply keeps the money in the US rather than someone overseas.

Can't be a bad thing.

Re:Zero Emissions?

[The_Wilschon]

A large amount of the carbon footprint of producing so-called zero emission transportation comes from not yet having zero emission transportation. That is, shipping lines still use diesel engines. Once we've got fuel cell or whatever transportation nailed down, shipping the parts all over the world to assemble more fuel cell cars won't incur such a huge carbon cost because the shipping lines will also be zero emission.

The other big carbon cost is of course the production of the hydrogen, which is generally AFAIK done using electrolysis, powered by whatever power plants happen to be around, most of them high emission plants. Changing this is not so directly tied to producing the fuel cell cars, but once this issue is fixed, fuel cell (or whatever) cars will approach much more closely to zero emissions.

In short, the carbon footprint of producing the cars and the fuel is in part a separate issue. Fixing the cars themselves will probably come first, and the rest will follow.

The old is new again

[hcdejong]

From 1982 to about 1990, the Group C prototypes ran with regulations that basically allowed any engine as long as the fuel consumption didn't exceed ~60 l/100 km. Then the FIA fucked up and changed the rules to mandate F1-style engines, ending the series' popularity.
There were a few races that ended in drama as the leading competitor ran out of fuel, but on the whole it was rather successful, with wildly disparate cars running very close races. You saw 7-litre naturally aspirated V12s, 5-litre turbocharged V8s, 3-litre turbocharged flat-6s and Wankel engines.
It'd be interesting to see a revival of this idea. More interesting than a fuel cell-only class, I'd wager.

Re:The old is new again

[Thelasko]

Don't get me started. I've been a long time proponent of this idea. There's really two types of racing, racing to challenge a driver's ability, and racing to challenge technology.

Currently, motorsports is mostly about driver ability. NASCAR, the most popular form of motorsports in the U.S.A., regulates the cars so heavily it would be simpler to just provide cars like IROC did. Le Mans is probably the most technologically challenging. We have seen some breakthroughs recently with the R10. But it's still not the old days, you can't race my favorite car, the 787B at Le Mans.

I think a big problem is because either the drivers, or the spectators cant distinguish whether a race was won by talent, or technology. When a team wins with technology, the drivers and fans cry foul.

In terms of regulation, in motorsports, and on the street (I'm looking at you EPA, and NHTSA), I don't think certain technologies should be mandatory. There should be metrics that can be tested (horsepower, acceleration, etc) that can be required, but to have requirements like, piston driven engines, or specific types of brakes, severely stifles innovation.

In summary, one shouldn't use rules and laws to force technology on people.

Re:just wondering..at what point...

[Gordonjcp]

I'm in the UK, so I already pay around $10 per gallon - which isn't a lot of money at all. I really can't understand why USians are crying about petrol at $5 per gallon, at all. I don't use my car for commuting, because it's much quicker and easier to get to work on the train. I typically drive a few thousand miles per month, most of it long runs where there is very little public transport. I have absolutely no need of a car that can only do very short distances around town, or accelerate from 0-60 in the blink of an eye - I need a car that can accelerate from 0-90mph in a reasonable time (say, less than about 20 seconds) and hold that speed for several hours.

On Taco's iPod comment

[DesScorp]

"I'm not sure the ipod will ever catch on. No wireless, less storage than a nomad - lame."

Taco's statement has become somewhat infamous, but I have to defend him on this one. He was essentially right (and these words are being typed on a Mac). Simplicity and elegance in function are virtues... lack of meaningful features are not. As such, I've never owned an iPod, as I think it's ridiculous not to put a simple FM receiver and a built in Mic for quick voice recording in modern MP3 players.

When compared to their competitors... Creative's players, Sandisk's Sansa players... hell, even the Zune in some cases... the iPod simply isn't a very good value, unless being part of the crowd appeals more to you than price and features.