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Technology Stocks : Hydrogenics (HYGS): Fuel Cells -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Curbstone who wrote (9)	1/7/2002 1:21:46 PM
From: stealthy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18

Monday January 7 12:31 PM ET GM Fuel Cell Car Offers Cheap Transport By Michael Ellis DETROIT (Reuters) - After 100 years of making gasoline-burning cars, General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM - news) sees a not-so-distant future when vehicles powered by hydrogen will revolutionize the industry and make transportation more affordable for the world's population. GM, the world's largest automaker, unveiled at the Detroit auto show on Monday a fuel cell vehicle that it said could rewrite the rules of how automakers design cars and make them much cheaper to build. Because fuel cells consume hydrogen and emit only water and heat, automakers have talked for years about the arrival of the cleaner technology over the next decade as a way to make cars more environmentally friendly and curtail the need for foreign oil. GM said its so-called Autonomy fuel cell car, which it says is the first vehicle designed exclusively for the fuel cell, could have a far broader impact. Autonomy houses all the essential elements of the car, including the fuel cell to provide power, in a skateboard-like chassis between the four wheels and under the body and seats of the vehicle. The chassis could be fitted with a wide variety of bodies, such as a minivan interior for a family in the United States, or a pickup truck bed for hauling livestock in China, GM said. Because the Autonomy chassis has a 20-year lifespan, a growing family could change from a sporty sedan to a larger sport utility vehicle by switching the body, a far cheaper alternative to buying a new vehicle. Or if the vehicle needs more power, the fuel cell can be expanded. ``This is more than just a technological or design experiment,'' said Larry Burns, GM vice president of research and development and planning. ``Our end goal is nothing short of reinventing the automobile.'' A vehicle using the Autonomy chassis could look completely different from those on the road today. Because the gasoline-burning engine is gone and all the controls, such as steering and braking, are operated by electronic wires rather than mechanical connections, car designers are free to come up with new interpretations of cars and trucks. ``From a design perspective...almost all restraints are gone,'' said Wayne Cherry, GM vice president of design. ``No one ever said before, 'Let's take a clean sheet of paper and design around a fuel cell.''' Although fuel cells are more expensive than gasoline engines, the costs of owning a vehicle could be driven down by the flexibility of the Autonomy, the elimination of many mechanical parts and the long life-cycle of the vehicle, GM said. Currently only about 12 percent of the world's population owns a vehicle. ``There's plenty of room to design costs out of this,'' Burns said. ``It's potentially a stimulus for significant growth in automobile demand worldwide.''