Fuel cell replacing cleandiesel PNGV focus

Diesel Fuel News, Jan 21, 2002 by Jack Peckham

A hydrogen fuel-cell focused "Freedom Car" -- not ultra-clean diesel-hybrid electric cars -- will get the most attention and the most funding in the new version of the U.S. government/industry "Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles" (PNGV).

U.S. Department of Energy along with General Motors, Ford and DaimlerChrysler just announced the latest "Freedom Car" (replacing PNGV) to refocus on "petroleum-free" fuel cells. This follows their earlier R&D proving that the diesel-electric hybrid is the only vehicle with any chance of hitting 80 miles/gallon for a five-passenger sedan at a price even close to what customers will pay.

The new "Freedom Car" R&D program probably (for the near term) will continue to include some funding for clean-diesel exhaust aftertreatment R&D, DOE officials told us.

However, fuel cells will take by far the biggest portion of future "Freedom Car" funds. Specific funding levels for "Freedom Car" R&D programs will be outlined in President Bush's fiscal 2003 budget message to Congress next month, and that's where the presence (or absence) of any continuing funds for clean-diesel R&D will show up.

Now that the auto industry is moving closer to introducing more hybrid-electrics commercially, the "pre-competitive" and "longterm" focus of PNGV/Freedom Car R&D will shift to hydrogen fuel cells.

Since almost no hydrogen refueling stations exist -- and probably won't for decades -- this ensures that the new "Freedom Car" government/industry R&D won't interfere with automakers' near-term plan to use gasoline, naphtha, diesel or some methanol for on-board reforming for commercial fuel-cell cars/trucks. Fuel cell vehicle (on-board reforming) commercial production could start on a small scale sometime after 2010, although even smaller-scale, test-platform fleet rollouts are expected around 2005.

According to DOE, "Freedom Car" research supposedly aims to develop vehicles that "will require no foreign oil" and get hydrogen from "renewable" sources.

That will be extremely difficult to achieve even if such isolationism made any economic or technical sense in a world so increasingly inter-dependent. Ironic, too, since none of the "American" automakers in PNGV is in fact a "national" company, any more than today's energy giants or "renewable fuel" producers (ag giant ADM, for example) are really "national" companies. Even small farmers -- aiming to become "biofuel" feedstock producers -- are in fact international producers that view the world as their market, not just the U.S.