Last week, General Motors announced the names of first eight consumers in the country who will get to spend three months driving a fuel cell car: five individuals in Orange County, Calif., and three more in Westchester County, New York. Through an online application, GM is allowing other drivers register for a chance to live with a fuel-cell car and provide real-world feedback.
The selected drivers will be part of the largest public demonstration of fuel cell vehicles, which will eventually include 100 fuel-cell powered Chevrolet Equinox SUVs, in Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, D.C. Through this program, General Motors hopes to demonstrate the technology, as well as gain feedback from consumers use the vehicles in the real world.
The three cities were chosen because they have the only publicly accessible hydrogen fuel pumps that can fill the fuel-cell powered Chevrolet Equinoxes. So far there is only one hydrogen station in each of the three cities capable of filling the fuel-cell Equinox. The GM system requires hydrogen gas compressed to 10,000 psi--twice the pressure other, more common hydrogen pumps can handle. The Equinoxes can go about 150 miles on a tank when filled to 10,000 psi, and hold 4.2 kg of compressed hydrogen. GM says it takes 5-6 minutes to fill the tank. They could fill up at 5,000-psi pumps, but would have only a short range. So far no other hydrogen pumps are open to the general public. The company will pay for the fuel and insurance for all consumers chosen to be in the test.
To qualify, consumers have to fill out an online survey. But that doesn't guarantee access to one of the fuel-cell cars. Depending on their answers to the survey, some consumers may be invited to join a GM-sponsored online chat room to discuss hydrogen and fuel cell cars. The company monitors and participates in the chat room, and invites some users to spend up to three months driving the cars, based on their background, driving habits, and forum comments.
The most important qualifications are where you live or work, how long your commute is, and how far you usually drive. But beyond that, GM is interested in finding effective evangelists for fuel-cell cars, as much as anything else. That's because the company feels that the hydrogen refueling infrastructure has fallen behind the development of fuel-cell cars.
GM executives think even the word "hydrogen" has perhaps been stigmatized by images of the Hindenburg zeppelin burning in 1937. Today, the first question many people ask when hearing about hydrogen is whether it is safe.
Hydrogen storage has come a long way since the Hindenburg. In the Equinox, for example, hydrogen is stored in three thick-walled, carbon-fiber tanks whose development included tests in fires, severe vibration, being dropped, and even ballistic tests.
In the end, hydrogen may be far safer than gasoline, in part because it rises and dissipates quickly in the air, so it can't pool under the vehicle. "Gasoline is not the safest fuel, and if it were being introduced in the market for the first time today, it might not make it," says Keith Wipke, an engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado.
GM is looking for drivers who are enthusiastic about new technology and protecting the environment, and for opinion leaders who will be enthusiastic advocates of the technology to their friends and families. These drivers are expected to provide feedback on driving the cars (how they handle, how drivers like the brakes, etc.), fueling them, and what less-obvious insights come from truly living with them.
I drove one of the cars, and it feels remarkably well developed for a demonstration vehicle, with strong mid-range acceleration and the standard features of a conventional Equinox. The hydrogen tanks take up only a small portion of the cargo area. The electric regenerative brakes on this model were a little difficult to modulate. But other than that, and the hushed sound of the electric motor, and the KW gauge in place of a tachometer it's hard to distinguish it from a conventional car from behind the wheel.
The future sounds promising for fuel cell cars, but there are still lots of hurdles to be surmounted. For more detail on fuel-cell cars visit our Fuel Economy Guide.
If you'd like to participate, and you live in Orange County, Calif. or Westchester County, N.Y., visit the Project Driveway site.
- Eric Evarts
Discuss fuel-cell vehicles in the "Hybrids and alternative fuel vehicles" forum.
In the ongoing battle over CO2 emissions limits in California, a group of car company executives from the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers recently met with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to plead their case. They say the state should drop its proposed limits on carbon-dioxide emissions, which would effectively require cars to get better fuel economy. Since the federal government recently established higher fuel economy regulations, requiring cars to average 31.6 mpg by 2015, they say the California mandate is unnecessary and would result in a patchwork of fuel economy regulations across the nation. 
