Which comes first, hydrogen fuel, or cars that need it?

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Courtesy photo A Connecticut-based company is looking to bring hydrogen fueling stations similar to one seen here to the Interstate 95 corridor.

It's a chicken-or-egg scenario when it comes to emerging fuel-cell technology allowing automobiles to be powered by hydrogen and emit little more than a trickle of water from the tailpipe.Manufacturers need to commit funds to mass-producing the vehicles, but hydrogen fueling stations to fill those vehicles also are needed.A push to set up a hydrogen fueling infrastructure has been in development in California for more than four years as car manufactures lease out test-model vehicles. Now, a new proposal has a Connecticut company looking to establish a "hydrogen highway" on the Interstate-95 corridor from Florida to Maine.Wallingford, Conn.-based Proton Energy Systems has announced plans to develop the privately funded network of stations along the East Coast through sister company SunHydro."Hydrogen vehicles are much better for the environment than gasoline-powered vehicles. Hydrogen vehicles have zero harmful emissions," said Robert Friedland, president and chief executive officer of Proton Energy, which makes equipment that derives hydrogen from water. SunHydro has received approval to develop a hydrogen refueling station at its headquarters in Wallingford and plans to build upward of 10-15 new stations in the next two years to satisfy what the company anticipates will be growing consumer demand."The goal is to make it possible for a hydrogen car to drive from Maine to Florida strictly on sun and water via SunHydro stations. Our goal is 100 percent off the grid," said Michael Grey, president of SunHydro. Initial plans call for the nearest stations to be built in Braintree, Mass., and Portland, Maine."We have looked at New Hampshire, but are not ready to name a specific location at this point," Grey said.Companies ranging from Honda to Mercedes-Benz have been developing hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles for years with the goal of creating a zero-emissions vehicle that can operate in all climates and reduce dependence on petroleum-based fuels.California has led the charge, having set up public/private partnerships in a state that now has a hydrogen highway. Manufacturers are leasing and testing about 250 fuel-cell "demonstration" vehicles in metro- politan hubs ranging from Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay area.California Air Resources Board spokesman Dimtri Stanich said the governor asked his organization to help set up a hydrogen highway system, but the "trajectory" of that executive order has been evolving away from a long string of hydrogen stations up the coast toward a new plan that would place them in concentrated hubs.California Fuel Cell Partnership spokesman Roy Kim said California currently has 26 hydrogen fueling stations that can service a fuel cell vehicle. The vehicles are filled up with hydrogen gas and use a fuel cell that employs a chemical reaction to derive electricity."It's almost like a little power plant, and the byproduct is water," Kim said.Kim said the cars have a smaller battery than a traditional electric car. The battery can serve as a buffer to store electricity during certain driving conditions, but the main propulsion unit is the fuel cell, which creates electricity as long as it's being fed pressurized hydrogen gas.The gas stored in the vehicle's tanks never loses its stored energy.The main difference between an electric and a fuel cell vehicle is the former stores energy in a battery while a fuel cell constantly creates electricity with a chemical reaction.Kim said fuel-cell vehicles emit only a small amount of water from their tailpipe, not enough to affect road surfaces, and he noted that some vehicle designs also would circulate the water back into the system as a coolant.The possible effect on road conditions is "a concern that the manufacturers have taken into account," Kim said.He said manufacturers are seeking to meet standards that would allow fuel cell vehicles to be fully functional in temperatures as low as minus 20 degrees, which is why he said they are often tested in places like British Columbia and Rochester, N.Y.As for the specifics of fuel mileage, that's still being worked on, according to Kim, but the California Fuel Cell Partnership provided information showing fuel cell vehicles are two to three times as efficient as conventional combustion engine vehicles.Honda's website boasts that its new FCX Clarity fuel cell vehicle has twice the driving energy efficiency of a standard compact hybrid-electric vehicle and three times the efficiency of a compact internal combustion engine vehicle fueled solely by gasoline.The Clarity is being leased for about $600 a month in a "limited release," with most in California. Kim said major auto manufacturers working with the California Fuel Cell Partnership have reached a consensus that they will target 2017 as the year to introduce hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on the market. Projections from the partnership estimate 50,000 will be sold nationwide, with 80 percent of those for markets in southern California.SunHydro leaders have indicated their company will produce hydrogen gas on site at their stations using solar power and water. Company leaders say the energy it takes to produce a kilogram of hydrogen is comparable to the amount of energy needed to produce a gallon of gasoline. They indicate most fuel cell cars will need 4-6 kilograms to fill the tank, and a full tank will have a range of 300-plus miles. Grey said he has confidence that the building of stations on the I-95 corridor will make "original equipment manufacturers" more inclined to produce fuel-cell vehicles and consumers more likely to buy them on the East Coast."The presence of a fueling station will certainly figure into the decision of a driver to acquire a fuel cell car. To realize the full potential of the fuel cell vehicle and to expand the market, stations are needed and welcomed by both (manufacturers) and the public," Grey said.As automakers work to reduce the price tag of fuel-cell vehicles — an aspect widely considered to be one of the biggest hurdles in getting them onto car lots — some have taken to a hybrid approach, integrating the use of hydrogen power into existing cars.Tai Robinson — president and chief engineering officer for Intergalactic Hydrogen — said his company already is retrofitting standard internal combustion engine vehicles to run on hydrogen.He said his "multifuel" vehicles can run on everything from standard gasoline or natural gas to hydrogen and propane.Robinson's Phoenix-based business has produced a hydrogen-powered Hummer and a "tri-fuel" Chevy Suburban.The entrepreneur said multifuel vehicles could help bridge the gap until more hydrogen fuel stations are introduced."They're the best of all worlds ... it works in today's infrastructure, but creates the demand for more hydrogen stations. What works today paves the way for tomorrow," Robinson said.Robinson noted his red, white and blue "H2 Toy" Toyota Tacoma can run on natural gas or hydrogen fuel with a $14 fill-up getting him 175 miles of driving."Toxic gasoline is the enemy ... we have to get away from it," he said.And he said his retrofitted multifuel vehicles are certainly eco-friendly."They are cleaner out the tailpipe than breathing the air in New York or Washington, D.C.," Robinson said.

Courtesy photo A Connecticut-based company is looking to bring hydrogen fueling stations similar to one seen here to the Interstate 95 corridor.

Bufori MKVI - Auto Shows

 

If there is one country that’s completely forgotten in the automotive world, it might be Malaysia. But it has its own automotive industry, including Proton, a mass-market carmaker which used to build recycled Mitsubishis but now has its own unique lineup and happens to own one of our favorite sports car manufacturers, Lotus.

While you know about Lotus and possibly Proton, you have probably never heard of Bufori. The small company started building cars in 1986 and, in 1998, production moved from Australia to Malaysia. Bufori started out with retro sports cars, but the new models are getting more modern and interesting. For the Geneva auto show, the company is launching a four-door sedan currently called the MKVI. Its real name will be announced when the car is unveiled at the show.

Hot-Rod Construction and Lightweight Skin

The MKVI's body is made from Kevlar and carbon fiber, stretched over a specially developed tubular frame. The rear doors are hinged at the back, just like those on a Rolls-Royce Phantom. The big fenders and long hood are decidedly retro, but the six headlights are integrated into the fender—a modern touch.

Power comes from Chrysler's 425-hp, 6.1-liter Hemi V-8. With the MKVI, Bufori hopes to increase its production volume from its current 60 vehicles annually to 100. And the upcoming CS sports car should give the company an additional push. Bufori’s maximum production capacity is around 300 units a year, but it has a way to go to get there.

With the sporty and rather modern CS and the MKVI, Bufori aims to present a very distinct alternative to traditional luxury cars. But if you are thinking about trading in your Stutz IV Porte, don't hold your breath. Bufori's focus is on China, Russia, and the Middle East—besides the Malaysian market, where the company enjoys strong local support.

Drive on for zero road toll

For many it was considered the price of progress. Then a strange thing happened. The road toll stopped rising, plateaued and then began to fall.

At that time, whatever standard used to measure it, Australia's toll was among the worst in the world. Few Western countries topped the traffic toll 30.4 deaths per 100,000 population in 1970.

Had we continued at that rate a further 88,970 Australians would have died with 17 times that number seriously injured. But now, with a population of about 22 million, Australia's toll is about 1500 road deaths a year, or slightly under seven per 100,000 population. Why the dramatic drop? We stopped blaming drivers and allowed engineers and scientists to design safer highways and safer cars.

In 1971, in my booklet The Australian Way of Death, I wrote: "We know that drivers make mistakes. We know that at some stage during their driving career of 40 or 50 years they will have a momentary lapse in concentration, drive too fast, be distracted by someone inside or outside the car, drink too much or make any one of a thousand mistakes that could lead to an injury or death producing accident. The point is should they die for it.?"

In 1965, Ralph Nader, in his book Unsafe at Any Speed, blew the whistle on the major car makers for ignoring the technology available to make cars safer, preferring instead to concentrate on style, speed and power.

His revelations led to US legislation that forced the redesign of the motor vehicle. Within a few years, collapsible steering columns, recessed instrument panels, strengthened side bars and air bags were among the many changes that enabled the occupants of a vehicle to survive dangerous crashes.

Australia made its contribution. In 1970 an all-party Victorian parliamentary committee recommended to the Bolte conservative government that they make the wearing of seatbelts compulsory. A furious debate broke out about people's right to kill themselves.

Fortunately the Victorian government ignored the pleading of the civil liberties lobby. Within months the drop in the road toll forced other states to follow suit. Noting Australia's success, other countries did the same. During the next decade, while the population increased, our annual road toll dropped from 3798 to 3274: a decrease of 524.

Our highways also improved. Before the 1972 election, I convinced Gough Whitlam that Labor should take road safety seriously. He announced that a Labor government would follow US president Dwight D. Eisenhower's example and build a national highway system linking the sectors that carried the bulk of interstate traffic between Australia's busiest cities. The Whitlam government began work on the national highway and funded the removal of notorious "black spots". Breathalysers were also introduced nationwide, taking the guesswork out of measuring alcohol consumption.

As each year passed, improved highways, seatbelts, safer vehicles and breathalysers saw the road toll continue to drop significantly. It was clear that the engineers and scientists had won the battle against "the behaviouralists".

If the latter had had their way almost 90,000 Australians would have died.

In 1966 Nader wrote: "It is faster, cheaper and more enduring to build operationally safe and crash-worthy automobiles that will prevent death and injury than to build a policy around the impossible goal of having drivers behave perfectly at all time under all conditions in the operation of a basically unsafe vehicle and often treacherous highway conditions."

His comments are still valid. Due to the extraordinary advance in electronics, it is possible to look forward to the day when no one dies on our roads.

The new magazine Intertraffic World certainly thinks so. "Increasingly intelligent vehicles are navigating decades-old `dumb' roads. Today's smart cars -- sometimes equipped with as many as 65 sensors -- have already taken over human tasks. They regulate speed, park themselves, map and find destinations, control skidding . . . Soon, guided by high-precision internal maps and inertial sensors, they'll know their position precisely so they won't need lane marking for guidance. They'll communicate with other smart cars, enabling a swarm of closely spaced cars to move in unison."

Sweden's Volvo company, which has led the way in producing safer cars, asserts that by 2020 anyone buying a Volvo and obeying the road rules will not be killed. Volvo's aim is zero deaths by 2020. If Volvo can do it, why not all vehicle manufacturers?

Many in the car industry believe that relatively soon drivers will hop into their cars, press a few buttons and be driven to work while reading the paper. That won't happen overnight so we must continue to make the system safer with incremental changes.

The Australian New Car Assessment Program independently crash-tests vehicles to assess their safety. Cars are rated from one to five with four- and five-star ratings reducing fatalities by half. There is twice the chance of being killed in a one- or two-star-rated vehicle. Three named in a Victorian parliamentary committee report tabled last year on Australian Design Rules were the Proton Jumbuck (one star) and the Great Wall SA220 and V240 models (two stars).

It is questionable whether these vehicles should be allowed on Australian roads. Surely safety ratings should be more prominently displayed in car advertising. If everyone drove a five-star car a further 175 lives a year would be saved.

The other area in which advances are possible is highway construction. When two-lane roads are replaced by four-lane divided highways, the road toll on those roads drops by 70 per cent. The evidence lies in international experience and in the thousands of lives saved on the upgraded Hume and Pacific highways during the past 30 years. If the public wants to see the road toll slashed it should pressure governments to concentrate on building safer rather than faster highways.

Safer cars and roads will yield the best results but as the Australian Traffic Council's National Road Safety Action Plan: 2009-2010 shows, there are dozens of other initiatives that would also help. It lists more than 100 measures that could be taken. Speed limiters, driver education, tougher law enforcement, increased surveillance, black spot remedial work, removal or protection from roadside obstacles, shoulder sealing, improved signage: the list is endless.

We know what needs to be done but how do we do it?

One obvious problem is the poor communications between those at the coal face of road safety research: the police, the bureaucrats, government, the media and the motoring public. They could start by using plain english.

Most of the distributed material on road safety is gobbledygook. The journalist and the public haven't the time to work their way through such turgid sludge.

No better example of poor communication exists than the practice of senior police imploring drivers not to drink and drive, to slow down and take regular rests.

It doesn't appear to have had any significant effect because, a few crazies aside, the majority of people drive sensibly 99.9 per cent of the time. As former US secretary of commerce John T. Connor said many years ago: "The great bulk of accidents involve

average, normally responsible drivers. No one is immune. It is the accumulation of rare accidents, occurring to all too many generally good drivers that principally accounts for an annual traffic toll."

The police acknowledge they have a communication problem. Warning, pleading and threatening drivers doesn't work because the public believes that speed traps are simply revenue raisers. Not so, say the police. Every 2km/hr reduction in speed leads to an 8 per cent reduction in crashes. Why aren't police on television telling the motoring public?

Calls for further reductions in speed limits will lead to cries of outrage from the usual suspects. But that also happened when seatbelts, breathalysers and 50km/hr speed limits were introduced. Would further reduction in speed limits work? Why can't we try it for six months?

Modern technology is working miracles in reducing the road toll but it's also creating new problems. Mobile phones are the latest distraction but technology is available to switch them off when the car is running. So too with alcohol. The technology exists to stop people driving when they are over the 0.05g/litre alcohol/blood level. Speed limiters are also available. Why aren't both being used?

There is no silver bullet but there are dozens of mini-silver bullets that will reduce crashes and bring us closer to a zero road toll.

President of the Australian College of Road Safety, Lachlan McIntosh, who recently attended a 1500-strong road safety conference in Moscow, returned disappointed that there were only three Australians present and none of them were ministers. He asks, "When will our political leaders have the courage to make road safety as important as climate change or gun control?" Should one add swine flu?

Where is Australia's Nader and a government and public demanding further action? Can we do it? To coin a phrase, yes we can.

Barry Cohen, a former minister, was chairman of the House of Representatives road safety committee 1972-75.

Italian Flair for Geneva's Show

Enlarge This Image Pininfarina

Pininfarina’s striking design for an Alfa Romeo spider is among the concept cars that the carrozzeria design houses have prepared for the Geneva motor show.

These celebrated coachbuilders, which produce design studies and sometimes build small runs of vehicles under contract, have long been the gold standard of automotive aesthetics. Yet economic hardships and family tragedies in recent years have raised doubts about their survival.

The strongest statement of their determination to survive and evolve will be in the displays at the Geneva show, which opens for press previews on Tuesday and runs through March 14. Pininfarina, creator of many memorable Ferraris and Maseratis, will show a concept for an Alfa Romeo spider, as the Italians call a sporty convertible. This year is also Pininfarina’s 80th anniversary.

Bertone offers up an Alfa coupe of similar size called the Pandion, or sea hawk. Italdesign Giugiaro, the design firm that is a relative newcomer among the traditional carrozzerie, is expected to offer a third version of the car, a sedan.

The concepts were developed for Alfa Romeo’s centennial. Spreading the design duties among several studios echoes practices of the mid-1950s, when Bertone designed and produced the Alfa Romeo Giulietta coupe, called the Sprint, and Pininfarina created the Spider.

“Our Spider concept celebrates the historical shapes, but also lays out a design language for the future,” Lowie Vermeersch, design director of Pininfarina, said in a telephone interview. Paolo Pininfarina, the chairman, added, “Our achievement is not any single car, but the establishment of Pininfarina as a world reference for Italian style.”

In August 2008, Paolo Pininfarina’s brother, Andrea, who was then chairman, died in a traffic accident. Pininfarina has since reorganized. At Bertone, too, the death in 1997 of the founder, Nuccio Bertone, ushered in a period of family conflicts and business difficulties. Not until December 2009 did his wife, Lilli Bertone, who had been in conflict with the Bertone daughters, Barbara and Marie Jeanne, take control of the company. Bertone has a new executive design director, Michael Robinson.

But beyond their star cars, the carrozzerie have long depended on consulting work in design and engineering and limited production runs for large automakers. That is changing, Pininfarina’s chief executive and chief operating officer, Silvio Angori, said in a recent interview. “Contract vehicle manufacturing is vanishing because of the new level of flexibility at large companies.”

Pininfarina still produces the C70 convertible for Volvo, but new modes of manufacturing, Mr. Angori said, have increased the number of variants that established companies can afford to produce. Those companies he said, “in essence have become carrozzerie themselves.”

“Now Pininfarina is reinventing the world of carrozzeria,” he added. “Our future rests on design, meaning style and engineering services, on ecomobility and on our brand equity.”

Ecomobility is the company’s shorthand for green technology, notably its Bluecar electric project, a joint endeavor with Bolloré, a French industrial combine. Under Paolo, Pininfarina’s Extra division has designed consumer products like shoes, vending machines and even a hotel.

Mr. Angori said future growth would come from China, India and other emerging markets. Pininfarina was one of the first design consultants to the Chinese auto industry almost 20 years ago. “We have done work for Brilliance and Chery,” he said. “We showed a sedan concept for Tata.”

But now, Mr. Vermeersch said, Pininfarina will not just design individual models. “We will develop the whole design language, as we did in years past for companies like Peugeot,” he said.

The Alfa Romeo concept cars in Geneva are of more than usual interest because Sergio Marchionne, who heads Alfa’s parent company, the Fiat Group, recently suggested that Alfa might return to the American market as soon as 2012.

Other carrozzerie are showing signs of life, too. Touring Superleggera, whose tradition goes back to World War I, will show in Geneva a version of the Bentley Continental GT made into a shooting brake, a hatchback wagon intended ostensibly for hunting. The most ambitious Geneva plans are those of Italdesign, established in 1968 by Giorgetto Giugiaro. In addition to the Alfa, it is expected to show a car for Proton, the Malaysian automaker.

Pininfarina has been Ferrari’s de facto design studio since 1952, when Enzo Ferrari somewhat reluctantly decided to make road cars to finance his racing obsession. Ferrari’s recent hiring of a new design director, Flavio Manzoni, made some Ferrari fans wonder if the company might take more design work into its own studios. But Mr. Angori said the relationship with Pininfarina would continue.

The carrozzeria tradition will persist because it runs deeper than the auto industry. “The tradition here is devoted to creating beautiful shapes, going back to Da Vinci,” Mr. Vermeersch said.

“It is ingrained in the people and in their hands,” he said. “The hands come in when they work on the physical model. We have 40 modelers, and even in the time of the computer every inch of every car here is touched by the hand.”

Tough to beat Toyota despite recalls

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN

MOST representatives from Brunei car dealerships interviewed yesterday said they felt that the recent Toyota vehicle recalls would have little to no effect on their share of domestic car market.

They said the Toyota brand name remains strong and its Brunei dealer NBT (Brunei) Sdn Bhd has done well in reassuring buyers that their vehicles are safe and exempted from the recalls.

Adeline Teng, marketing executive for Premier Automobiles Sdn Bhd (Ford and Jaguar), said that she did not feel that they would be able to make use of the recent recalls to break into Toyota’s hold on the car market in Brunei due to Toyota’s brand name.

“The Toyota brand is so strong. I don’t think there will be much change in terms of their sales (in the domestic market),” she said.

She added that this was especially the case for those dealing with European cars.

“People here always choose Toyota or other Japanese vehicles because they think that servicing, parts and maintenance for European cars are more expensive but this is not the case. The Japanese market is very strong,” she said.

Teng attributed this to the fact that there are more original equipment manufacturer (OEM) parts available for Japanese cars while parts for European cars generally have to come directly from their respective factories.

John Tan, marketing executive for TCY Motors Sdn Bhd’s Audi division, said that he personally felt that the global recalls would have no effect on sales in Brunei.

“The dealer of Toyota was very quick to counter and come up with press releases, reassuring the public that their vehicles were not affected,” he said.

“They were very quick with damage control,” he added.

Tan said that they were also quite fortunate that Brunei’s Toyota vehicles were different from the stock that was affected.

“If the stock were of the same batch that was recalled then things (would have been) different… but even then I think the effect will be very minor,” said the marketing executive who explained that this was due to Brunei’s market being completely different from the rest of the world.

He however added that the recalls would have an effect on Toyota’s reliability assurance around the world, a point which Matthew Lo Jun Heng said would result in a chink in Toyota’s armour.

“Toyotas are well renowned for their quality and high standards. This recall has caused quite a bit of damage to this selling point,” said the marketing manager of Worldwide Motor Sdn Bhd who deals with Proton vehicles.

“I think other car manufacturers and dealers will take advantage of this so they will certainly be affected,” he added.

Lo said that even though Brunei’s Toyota vehicles were not affected by the recall, people living in the Sultanate will now think twice when buying such vehicles.

“It is like the recession… Brunei was not affected but many people were concerned and (tried to spend less),” he said.

NBT however predicted that 2010 would be a good year.

In an earlier interview, Hj Ahmad Omar Hj Husin, marketing manager of NBT, said that he expected 2010 to be a good year for the company due to continued “after sales support”.

“I don’t think sales will be affected by the recalls,” he said, adding that sales figures had remained steady throughout 2009 compared to 2008.

“I cannot speak for the global market but I think we will be all right because apart from the Prius, none of our models were (recalled),” he said.

The automotive giant has announced a series of worldwide recalls that have affected almost eight million Toyota vehicles. This was more than its entire 2009 global sales of 7.8 million cars.

Some 2.3 million cars in the US were recalled due to accelerator pedal fears, a problem which also plagued over 75,000 Toyota cars in China. Another 1.8 million vehicles in Europe were also pulled out late last month. Toyota also recalled almost 5.3 million US vehicles to replace floor mats that could trap accelerator pedals.

The Brunei Times

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Apple's App Store is loaded with really cool tools to make the most of the little camera that couldn't.

Gadgets that broke our hearts

See which gadgets have broken Crave contributors' hearts--or at least made us question our undying love.

To Timbuktu, in a flying car

A bio-fueled flying vehicle called the Parajet Skycar is journeying from England to Mali via France, Spain, Morocco, and the Western Sahara.