Driving toward the future: GM fuel cell endurance run shows progress on road to commercial viability

Automotive Industries, August, 2004 by John McCormick

Our development car is fueled with liquid hydrogen, as opposed to the less space efficient, but easier to handle compressed variety. The GM engineers riding shotgun with me (we have four people on board, plus luggage) noted that the car averaged about 125 miles between refueling stops on the European marathon. That's about half what the HydroGen3's fuel cell system should be capable of, claimed the engineers, were the car not suffering from a number of handicaps. These include range-robbing performance tires, excess weight, unfavorable aerodynamics, a European government restriction on filling the tank to more than 85 percent capacity and last but not least, the fact that the marathon car was being driven by lead-footed auto journalists.

Although the rate of hydrogen consumption comes as something of a surprise to the engineering team, I was told that once the fuel cell powertrain is optimized in a purpose-built vehicle (which is the next step, say GM insiders), then fuel mileage will improve significantly.

Proceeding across northern France, I was thinking less about fuel consumption and more about the refueling procedure. My curiosity was answered as we pulled into an autoroute rest stop and met up with a van, equipped with two large Linde liquid hydrogen tanks and an elaborate pumping rig. It looked daunting but during three scheduled stops the actual act of pumping only took a matter of minutes and we were on our way in less than 30 minutes, or half the time the engineers had expected. I even took a turn at manhandling the bulky rig, which is not unlike a race car refueling device. Needless to say, interested parties, including Linde AG, Europe's primary hydrogen producer, are at work on a more user-friendly refueling system.

At the end of my turn at the helm of HydroGen3 I was left impressed by its easy driving character, refinement and lack of problems, other than the occasional, usually erroneous sensor reading. It's clear that the GM development engineers have much work left to do, optimizing the various systems, reducing the overall system cost to a target figure of $50 per kilowatt and conquering the still-daunting challenge of finding efficient hydrogen storage methods.

Bernd points out that freeway driving does not demonstrate the fuel cell car to its best advantage. "Efficiency at part load is the strength of a fuel cell and nearly two-thirds of all driving is at part load." That said, Zerbe admits that performance needs to improve. Running through other issues, Zerbe suggests that HydroGen3 demonstrates that safety concerns have been met, NVH problems are 80 percent contained and the program is on the right path to meeting durability goals.

These major challenges aside, it's evident from this demonstration that GM has taken a big stride forward in its march toward a working hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. "This marathon has been an extremely good engineering experience," notes Zerbe. "We have learned a great deal."

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