Cars of Tomorrow- Hydrogen Fuel
Posted : May 15, 2005 at 8:18 pm [IST]
Here is the news for all automobile lovers.
GM, Toyota in talks for hydrogen cars James Mackintosh / Paris May 13, 2005
General Motors is in advanced discussions with Toyota about building a joint factory to make hydrogen-powered car engines in an attempt to speed up the adoption of the environmentally friendly technology.
And we start thinking what is this hydrogen fuel car. Why are the manufacturers talking of these cars? How will it be different from the present cars? What will be its impact on the world economy and even the regional politics?
Why Hydrogen Fuel Cells?
Fuel cells produce energy through a chemical reaction, like a battery, rather than through combustion, so there’s no need for pistons, camshafts, or dozens of other bits of machinery.
The fuel cell can be placed anywhere in the vehicle–not just under the hood. It will give freedoms to the designers to recast it with better safety structures and more user-friendly interiors. The technology could improve the style of the cars and make more appealing too.
It will no more require gasoline or diesel to burn inside the engine, and so will not produce any pollutants harming the environment and creating warming of the earth. Fuel cells emit only water vapor.
Sources of hydrogen will be many in addition to fossil fuels and you can even wring it out of water. With fuel cells will go the dependence of the auto industry on most politically volatile countries that are rogue. It will mean the death of oil politics.
Fuel cells will make it easy to scale up or down the power and output with addition or removal of just a couple of different fuel cell power trains. It will avoid all the hassles of having an extended family of four-, six-, and eight-cylinder engines.
The energy from a fuel cell can produce even more power than a gasoline engine and so provide for even more computer chips and electrical gizmos than found in today’s cars.
But still many technical hurdles are to be crossed. Some of them are:
Just for US, it will require a national infrastructure with about 12,000 stations, at $1 million apiece.
It still isn’t clear whether the hydrogen would come in a gas or liquid form, or if consumers could safely fuel their own vehicles.
Other daunting technical hurdles involving hydrogen storage and cold-weather limitations could push fuel cells out indefinitely.
However, almost all the major automakers are on the job. For example, Honda has reportedly made breakthroughs on a problem known as “cold start” that allows its system to turn over at temperatures as low as minus four degrees.
To get a feel of the hydrogen fueled car, you will get excited to know that GM’s fuel-cell prototype, the Sequel, has can travel 300 miles between refueling, typical for a passenger car, and accelerates from 0 to 60 in less than 10 seconds–at least 50 percent faster than a Toyota’s Hybrid Prius.
GM has already started advertising about these hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. It has a timetable for hydrogen, and has pledged that by 2010 it will design a fuel-cell vehicle able to be mass-produced.
But perhaps, many miles are still ahead for the commercialization and acceptance of these cars, and many more billions more in R&D.
P.S And read some news where our people are busy.
- Indra
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