Look, Ma, No Gas!
From Car & Driver...
caranddriver.com
Look, Ma, No Gas!
DaimlerChrysler's Natrium runs on borax and high hopes.
BY DAN NEIL
Photography BY DAVID DEWHURST
AUGUST 2002
Aaron and Rosie Winters lived in a dirt house — okay, a hole — near Las Vegas. One day in 1881, a visiting prospector told them about a valuable white mineral he was in search of. He described a simple chemical preparation for the ore that, if ignited, would burn green, the telltale flame of a borate compound. Aaron thought he knew where such a mineral could be found but kept it to himself until the prospector left. The next day, he set out for Death Valley, retrieved a sample, performed the test, and exclaimed, "She burns green, Rosie. We're rich!"
Preston Chiaro, the CEO of U.S. Borax, confesses that the story flashed through his mind as he went along on Car and Driver's exclusive — nay, historic — road test of DaimlerChrysler's Natrium, a Ballard/ Xcellsis fuel-cell vehicle powered by sodium borohydride (NaBH4), derived from one of his company's products. If the Natrium's borax-based technology pans out, he will be sitting on the most valuable pile of white powder north of Colombia.
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