July 26th 2002
HI-TECH GAINS CREDIBILITY
Source: Sun Media
When it comes to passenger vehicles being powered
by hydrogen fuel cells, I qualify as a skeptic. For one thing, I have long
doubted fuel cell technology can be miniaturized economically to fit anything
smaller than commercial truck or bus applications.
Ho hum, I said when General Motors introduced AUTOnomy, the most radical concept car ever, at last year's Detroit auto show. Yeah, yeah, a platform that uses small electric motors to power each wheel, with power coming from a miniature hydrogen fuel cell. How nice. Maybe in your lifetime, Buck Rogers, but not in mine.
However, those doubts were forced to undergo a serious re-think after a trip to General Motors' proving grounds in Michigan last month. And although I still remain dubious about cost effectiveness and the infrastructure systems needed for alternate fuel delivery, my mind is much more open. For not only did I see GM's fuel cell technology at work, I got to drive an Opel Zafira minivan powered by hydrogen.
The international scope of GM's alternate fuel program is seen in the fact I was in Michigan driving a German minivan with California plates, while listening to a French engineer.
GM is talking big about its fuel cell research, predicting vehicles running on pure hydrogen will form a large part of its passenger fleet by the end of the decade.
"We are at the brink of a revolution so dramatic it will reinvent the automobile," GM president and CEO Rick Wagoner said in a press release.
After driving the Opel, I am less disinclined to disagree.
As one of the projects engineers explained it to me, this Opel uses GM's Generation II fuel cell. They're already working on Gen III, which will be two-thirds the size of Gen II, with Gen IV expected to be half that.
From the outside, the Opel looks like any other minivan, but slide behind the driver seat and you begin to see the differences. The motor still turns on and off with a key, but there the similarities end. For starters, there's no transmission and no gear selector, just a lever with an arrow pointing forward, another pointing back and the standard P position - for park - in the middle.
I am asked to keep it under 70 km/h on the test circuit, but it's difficult because it wants to go faster. And it's quiet until you slow down to a stop. Then, the Opel whines like a jet aircraft pulling up to the gate.
I also got to drive two other vehicles that have moved far beyond the concept stage to the point where they're now production prototypes. Both of them are trucks, because that's where, in the philosophy of Tom Stephens, group vice-president of GM Powertrain, you get "the biggest bang for the buck." It's a phrase you hear repeated everywhere around here, and it simply means that since U.S. federal fuel economy requirements are tougher for trucks than passenger cars, even the smallest improvement to one component of your truck fleet pays big dividends.
So I find myself behind the wheel of full-size pickup equipped with a Vortec V8 and GM's Displacement on Demand system. Scott Fosgard, director of GM Advanced Technology, tells me it will increase fuel economy by eight per cent based on EPA test procedures and by up to 25% in certain real world driving situations - without sacrificing performance.
The Vortec engine always starts using all eight cylinders, but the electronic powertrain control module helps it work smarter by using only half of the engine's cylinders when loads are light (during most normal driving conditions). Yes, GM tried something like this before with Cadillac's 8-6-4 engine, but computers then couldn't deliver performance to match the concept.
Today's microprocessors are fast enough to make Displacement on Demand work.
I drove a truck with this technology in real world traffic just outside GM's proving grounds, and if it hadn't been for indicator lights on the dash telling me which mode I was in, I'd never have known. It's that smooth. In heavy traffic, shifts back and forth between 4- and 8-cylinder operation are constant - and seamless. And anyone who tells you he can feel when the shifts take place is lying.
Displacement on Demand will be available on GM full-size pickups in 2004, with plans to produce 150,000 of these units in the first year and to have about 1.5 million of them on the road by 2007.
More high-tech stuff will also be found under the hoods of some GMC and Chevy pickups in the next few years. I also drove one of GM's Parallel Hybrid Truck prototypes - a Chevy Silverado equipped with an electric motor as well as the standard issue V-8. This is GM's idea of a hybrid vehicle, and it differs from the approach taken by either Honda or Toyota, the only manufacturers already offering hybrid cars for sale in North America.
Honda's Civic and Insight operate on small-displacement gasoline engines, using electric motors for added boost. Because the electric motor also acts as a flywheel, the gasoline engine can be shut down - at traffic lights, for instance - and immediately and automatically relit when the light turns green.
Toyota's technology takes a different approach, using a 44-hp electric motor to run the Prius sedan at low speeds. When more power is required, a 1.5-litre gasoline engine kicks in. The Prius can operate on either motor, or both at the same time. Batteries for the Honda and Toyota hybrids are continuously recharged through means such as regenerative braking. There's never a need to plug in these cars at night.
GM is using full-size pickups for its first commercial hybrid application for all the same reasons Displacement on Demand will also debut in a truck.
Unlike Honda or Toyota, though, GM's hybrid pickup doesn't use its electric motor for power. The truck operates full time under V-8 power, but the gas engine shuts down when the vehicle comes to a stop. The electric motor then kicks in to keep all the electrical systems running - radio, air conditioning. etc. - and then power is seamlessly switched back to the gas engine when you press the accelerator. Depending on traffic situations, GM foresees fuel savings of up to 15%.
Although technology like Displacement on Demand and the Parallel Hybrid Truck can be made to work today, it's really stop-gap science on the road from fossil fuel-burning internal combustion engines to clean electric motors powered by hydrogen fuel cells.
I'm still skeptical GM can meet its target of having personal fuel cell vehicles in dealer showrooms by the end of the decade, but I'd no longer risk my daughter's university education by betting against it. And I sure hope it happens.
Maybe AUTOnomy, with its idea of removable bodies, reconfigurable seating, drive-by-wire controls and small electric motors turning each wheel on fuel cell power really is the car of the future and not just an auto show gimmick.
The automobile, as we know it, has been around for more than 100 years - simply an outgrowth of the carriage making industry that Ransom E. Olds and Henry Ford could still understand today. Maybe it's about damn time somebody reinvented it.
