Fuel cell cars cruise into Seattle

You could have driven a fuel cell Honda at the UW Bothell campus Tuesday morning. The Hydrogen Road Tour 2009 cruised into Seattle, Monday and Tuesday. The tour started from Chula Vista, CA and will end in Vancouver, British Columbia. The 1700-mile Road Tour was designed to highlight cities where fuel cells and hydrogen fueling stations are getting started.

A drive in the Honda FCX Clarity was, "superb!" the fit and finish Honda-grade, and the design clearly aimed at the upmarket crowd. The drive was a short one, around the Bothell campus, but if you were a passenger, the only clue that the car ran on hydrogen was the lack of engine noise. This was not a stripped down version, nor did it have a dashboard full of gauges you had to figure out, it was a Honda with all the familiarity and confidence you might associate with that.

The Hydrogen Road Tour had 12 vehicles on it:
* Daimler F-Cell
* Chevy Equinox FCV
* Honda FCX Clarity
* Hyundai Tucson FCEV
* Kia Borrego FCEV
* Nissan X-Trail
* Toyota FCHV-adv
* Volkswagen Tiguan HyMotion
* Volkswagen Caddy Maxi

So there was a configuration for everyone, from SUV's to vans to the Daimler F-Cell that resembles the Smart fortwo, a compact urban vehicle. Fuel hydrogen is measured differently than gasoline so miles-per-gallon comparisons are a bit dodgy, but the Road Tour team estimates the cars on the tour are getting 60 to 70 mpg equivalent on the road.

Fuel cells use hydrogen to create electricity to make the wheels go round; the only emissions are water and heat. These cars use a proton exchange membrane (PEM) that combines fuel hydrogen and air to create electricity. A series of these PEM's are the fuel cell stack that is the heart of the system.

The benefits of fuel cell cars are that they are a long-term solution to air quality issues, energy dependence, and climate change issues. They are fuel-efficient, emit only heat and water, and are virtually silent. Every country in the world has the resources to create fuel hydrogen and the processes to create it were discovered over 150 years ago.

Sandy Thomas, president of H2Gen Innovations believes that a hydrogen infrastructure could be put into place with public/private investments of about $15 billion over 14 years, much less than the Iraq War or the federal ethanol subsidy.

One myth quickly destroyed at the Bothell drive Tuesday morning, is that fuel cell cars are slow and hard to drive. For example, the Honda FCX Clarity has a range of 240 miles and a top speed of 100+ mph. The comments from drivers afterwards clustered around how similar to a "regular" car the drive was; how the fuel cell made the car so smooth and silent; how easy it would be to get attached to one.

One of the drivers was heard to exclaim, "That thing's a rocket!" after his drive in the Daimler F-Cell. This is the same Daimler that invested in Tesla Motors. Dr. Thomas Weber, the head of research and development for Mercedes-Benz, announced that Daimler is buying a 10% stake in Tesla Motors. Daimler will be providing Tesla with engineering support and possibly parts for the Model S.
 

 

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