Thursday May 20 9:42 PM ET
Full Cell Buses Could Hit Market Sooner Than Expected
By Allan Dowd
VANCOUVER (Reuters) - The ''Hindenberg Syndrome'' is not as bad as Ballard Power Systems Inc (Nasdaq:BLDP -
news) and DaimlerChrysler AG (NYSE:DAJ - news) had feared, so fuel cell-powered buses could on the market sooner than
expected, officials said Thursday.
Concern about riding and repairing vehicles with noticeable hydrogen-filled fuel tanks on top of them was among the
psychological issues that backers of the buses knew they had to overcome to get the vehicles into world mass-transit fleets.
''We were so surprised, really. Not the mechanical people, not the drivers, not the passengers are caring about this,'' said
Ferdinand Panik, DaimlerChrysler's senior vice president for fuel cell technology.
Panik, a member of Ballard's board of directors, told Ballard's shareholders meeting that commercial marketing of fuel-cell
engines for busses could begin as early as 2002, up to two years sooner than some previous predictions.
Fuel cells use hydrogen to make electricity through a chemical reaction involving oxygen and a catalyst. The only byproduct is
water, so they have hailed an the environmental alternative to the internal combustion engine.
Experimental fuel-cell powered buses are being tested in Chicago and Vancouver. They are easy to spot, with nine fuel tanks
holding compressed hydrogen in a rectangular box on their roofs.
Panik acknowledged to reporters after the shareholders' researchers were worried that people would not feel safe riding under
tanks of a fuel that is best known to many as the source for the Hindenberg zeppelin explosion in 1937.
''This Hindenberg Syndrome was something that wasn't existing (researchers found),'' Panik said.
Ballard Chief Operating Officer Layle ''Kip'' Smith said testing of the buses in the mass transit fleets of Chicago and
Vancouver has gone better than expected in terms of mechanical issues as well.
The companies have said they expect fuel-cell powered buses to hit the commercial market before passenger cars do, in part,
because per-vehicle costs is less of the concern in entering the mass transit market.
DaimlerChrysler hopes begin limited commercial production of fuel-cell powered cars in 2004 or 2005. It is one of several
companies involved in a project to on fuel cell vehicles in California. |
