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Gaffer Variety:
GM Fuel Cell Hype V061:
By Willie Gaffer:
Robert Lutz, a GM Vice Chairman seems to be long on
rhetoric, but perhaps a bit short on delivery. Mrs. Gaffer handed me a section
of the Detroit Free Press with a story by Tom Walsh. According to this article,
Lutz said, “I want to demonstrably do something in a big way before
Well, it seems they have a hydrogen fuel cell car ready for
the market. Well, almost ready! The promised deliver to market is really for
2011. At that time, the plan is to have the affordable hydrogen-powered
vehicles ready for mass delivery. That is 5 years away, enough time for Lutz to
be in hiding if it does not come off. This whole scenario took place at
There is a bit of a caveat in this big deal. It comes in the
way of a threat from Lutz to no less than the
This vehicle they are talking about is really a hybrid. It has fuel cells alright, but it also has lithium-ion batteries. What for? I’ll tell you in a bit. It also has a limited driving range of 300 miles between fill-ups. Say what? No wonder Lutz wants the government to deploy a hydrogen deliver system. The stations cannot be few and far between. Also, the predicted lifetime for these putt-putts is 50,000 miles. Compare that to my son’s Chevy pickup that just turned 150,000 miles with no major problems.
They talk about spirited performance, but they do not talk
about horsepower or acceleration from zero. Walsh says it gets to 60 mph in
about 10 seconds. Also, we have Walsh’s report that the car drives like a
normal vehicle. That’s good, but not great and not quite true.
They did not talk about the cost of hydrogen or what this vehicle costs. What does a fill-up for a 300 mile trip cost? We don’t know. How much did it cost to build this car? We don’t know. Another question we can’t answer is, how big is this fuel cell power converter? How much of the internal space does it take up? Is there still room for cargo? We don’t know.
The biggest weakness I see is the 300 mile driving range. What we have here is a shopping and going to work car. I don’t think Americans will settle for that. I don’t think Americans should settle for that. Nor should we accept the idea of bearing the expense of building a completely new creation and delivery system for fuel. Let us consider what it took to build the delivery system we already have in place for gasoline.
I remember when some, not all, towns had one gas station. A few towns had two stations and some cities had a few. That was about 1935 and I was five years old. Then the industry evolved to where there were two gas stations on every corner. That was a bit after WWII. Then a decline set in and every other gas station became a fried chicken or donut shop. Still, we have plentiful supplies of gasoline everywhere. What’s next? Hydrogen stations on every corner? I don’t think so!
A hydrogen distribution system comparable to our gasoline
system would not cost billions. It would cost trillions. It would bankrupt
There are three problems with gasoline automobiles. One, as I have said, is cost, which is an illusion. Adjusted for inflation, gasoline is no more expensive now that it was in 1943. That’s a fact! The real problems are, gasoline is dirty and the engines are inefficient. I think there are two possible ways to deal with these problems.
We can stop gasoline autos from being dirty by preventing the emissions of burned fuel byproducts. I think it would be possible to collect all of the exhaust from a car and covert it to a harmless byproduct inside the auto exhaust system. I’m not talking about reducing emissions, but preventing them. Perhaps we could make carbon briquettes for the grill. No one has even attempted anything like that, but I think it can be done at a reasonable cost per auto. For sure, doing that would not be exotic or grand, like hawing fuel cells, but it would take care of the most important issue.
My other plan, the one I have undertaken, is the more
complete solution. That is, to use the gasoline we already have in an
automobile power converter. The converter would produce electricity in the
vehicle so it could be driven by electric motors. It would be much more
efficient and absolutely clean, but the biggest upside is it would perform as
well as a gasoline engine powered auto. And, we already have the fuel deliver
system in place.
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