Hooked on fuel cells
After testing out the H-racer fuel cell toy car sent by BASF, I got the chance to test out a real fuel cell vehicle on July 14, courtesy of General Motors' (GM) Chevrolet Equinox fuel cell demo car, powered by Shell's hydrogen.
Shell, in partnership with GM, opened its second hydrogen refilling station in New York for fuel cell cars. There aren't any fuel cell cars out there yet for sale, but some are testing demo cars such as GM's Chevy Equinox under the company's Project Driveway program.
There are 30 vehicles available for testing in New York and 60 in California, out of 115 across the globe. Since the program's inception in January 2008, these cars have traveled 900,000 miles in total, producing just water as emissions - at least, from the tailpipe.
The car has mileage of 39 miles per kilogram of hydrogen. So if we do the math, it can actually go more than 160 miles before it needs to be filled up again.
At first glance, the car didn't even look anything like my vision of a greener Batmobile. Instead, it was a gray SUV/van-type of vehicle that any parent with two kids would like to have.
I had one of the GM officials chauffeur me around a parking lot so I could check the nuts and bolts inside the car (and to avoid being sued in case I crashed it). GM did not disclose the cost, but said they were very expensive. The fuel cells are hand-made.
One interesting feature is the energy display monitor near the dashboard, which shows power flowing from the fuel cell to the motor and/or battery as well as charging power returning to the battery during regenerative braking. It also shows how much gasoline was saved, depending on the car's total mileage.
The car I rode in already had 9,392 miles under its hood, and indicated about 417 gallons of gasoline saved.
I generally don't like to drive, and it has been 10 years since my last attempt, but all in all I was very impressed and was mightily tempted to buy a fuel cell vehicle at that moment - if there were one available, and cheap.
All I ask for is a nice sounding chime when the car starts, in order to avoid a possible crash. It's so quiet that I didn't even realize it was already turned on! Oh, and GM did assure me that the three hydrogen tanks located underneath are crash-proof.
We don't want another Hindenburg, do we
The car I rode in had 9,392 miles; about 417 gallons of gasoline saved
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