Tuesday April 20, 8:52 pm Eastern Time
New fuel cell cars to hit the road in California
SACRAMENTO, Calif., April 20 (Reuters) - California, the car-crazy state that has carried
on a decades-long love affair with the open road, will soon be the testing ground for a new
technology designed to let that romance last forever.
The state, Ford Motor Co (F - news), DaimlerChrysler AG (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland:
DCXGn.F), and heavyweights from the oil industry announced on Tuesday that about 50
vehicles carrying a revolutionary, eco-friendly fuel cell engine technology will hit California roads beginning in 2001.
By testing the low-polluting vehicles via real-world driving for a few years, the coalition hopes to gain enough information to
fine-tune the fuel cell engines and make them commercially available to consumers by 2004.
Fuel cell engines create their own electricity through a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen. Vehicles using the
engines are designed to offer little or no air pollution with the driving range of conventional vehicles -- an attractive package in
California, a state that is almost as fanatical about clean air as it is about driving.
''Our long-term goal is very simple. Zero emissions in the air. Zero. Nada. Nothing. Zip,'' Calif. Gov. Gray Davis said at a
news conference in front of the state Capitol.
Earlier, reporters watched as Davis drove up to the Capitol in one of two cars already equipped with the new technology. The
two spiffy vehicles -- a Ford P2000 Prodigy sedan and the Mercedes Necar 4, a version of its A-class hatchback that runs on
technology developed by Canadian fuel cell company Ballard Power Systems (BLD.TO - news) -- purred quietly and cleanly
as they consumed hydrogen.
The Sacramento test-drive was the result of the California Fuel Cell Partnership, a landmark collaboration between Ford,
DaimlerChrysler, Ballard and oil giants Atlantic Richfield (ARC - news), Royal Dutch/Shell , Texaco (TX - news), that hopes
to make fuel cell vehicles a reality in the 21st century.
''This unique partnership brings together all the key players that can help make fuel cell vehicles a reality,'' DaimlerChrysler
Chairman Robert Eaton said.
''Fuel cells will have a better chance to enter the marketplace more successfully and at less cost because of the leadership and
strong commitment these organizations are demonstrating today,'' he said.
Under the program launched Tuesday, DaimlerChrysler and Ford will each put five fuel-cell powered vehicles on California
roads beginning in 2001. Some 20 buses employing the same technology will also be tested, officials said.
The initiative was made possible partly because technology improvements have helped fuel cell engines, which once took up as
much space as an entire car, fit into a space as small as that occupied by a standard internal-combustion engine.
Like cars that run on internal combustion engines, those equipped with fuel cell engines will have to be topped off every so
often with a new supply of hydrogen. That sets them apart from the electric battery-powered vehicles that have appeared on
roads across the United States and must be recharged, which can take as much as several hours.
Analysts have said the pilot test of fuel cell-powered vehicles in California -- the state with the most stringent vehicle
emission-reduction targets -- showed huge potential for Ballard's technology, which turns hydrogen gas into electricity and
leaves only heat and water vapour as byproducts.
The partnership said the first test vehicles will initially run on hydrogen, but that subsequent demonstration vehicles would
probably run on methanol fuel. |
