Fuel Cells & Fuel Cell Vehicles

Fuel Cells
There's no question there are major challenges to overcome before fuel- cell-powered cars reach the road. The rewards, nonetheless, can be great. Fuel cells feed on hydrogen. There are obviously no refueling stations for hydrogen, and creating the fueling infrastructure would be seriously expensive. But there may be a solution to this problem. The auto industry's great hope is that research will some day allow the extraction of hydrogen from gasoline using an on-board "reformer." This conversion device, however, is costly and complicated. Current prototype reformers are bulky, use expensive (platinum group) metals, have cold-start delays, and require the gasoline to have a near-zero sulfur content. Industry estimates put the today's price of a reformer/fuel-cell powerplant at about 10 times that of a conventional powertrain. But 15 years ago, the price was 1000 times as expensive.

In August, GM announced it was hoping to have significant numbers of fuel-cell-powered vehicles that run on pump gas on the road by 2010 (the same date Toyota cites for its production fuel-cell vehicles). "Right now, you can't get hydrogen or methanol at your corner gas station, and it would cost hundreds of billions of dollars to create such an infrastructure," says Larry Burns, vice president of research, development, and planning at GM. "Developing gasoline-fed fuel cells makes the technology more attainable--even within this decade." Additionally, fuel cells tend to be heavy and bulky. But Ford showed a recent fuel-cell-development system powering a Focus, and GM is demonstrating its latest hydro-tech stuff in an S-10 compact pickup, so there is progress.

Another possible fuel-related problem is onboard hydrogen storage. Hydrogen could be stored as a low-energy/density gas under high (3000-10,000 psi) pressure in big tanks or as a super-cold (-423° F) liquid. However, if reformers can be made more responsive, there might be no need for this complicated form of fuel storage, because the vehicle would produce it as needed.

Despite the challenges, the benefits are huge. First, the only emissions are CO2 and water vapor. And the CO2 emissions are half those of an internal-combustion engine. A fuel cell also is more energy efficient (40 versus 27 percent) than an I.C. engine and could get double the mileage of a conventional gasoline engine. Naturally, GM and Toyota aren't the only companies with active fuel-cell programs. Ford, DaimlerChrysler, and Honda are also deeply invested in fuel-cell research. "Of course, there's a long way to go on several fronts," says Burns. "We are, after all, undertaking an historic change in transportation and propulsion technology. However, we're very encouraged by our rapid progress and the exciting benefits of fuel-cell vehicles."