A vision of the future
(Filed: 22/01/2005)
How far off is the hydrogen fuel cell? At last week’s Detroit Motor Show, GM’s Larry Burns spoke frankly to Andrew English
As we reported in last week's Detroit show coverage, the Sequel is the next step in General Motors' Autonomy hydrogen fuel-cell programme, packaging the powertrain, fuel, steering and suspension into an 11-inch thick "skateboard" chassis with a car body on top, in this case an American-style SUV that offers 0-60mph in less than 10 seconds and a range of 300 miles.
The wheel deal: Larry Burns unveils the GM skateboard fuel-cell chassis that underlies the Sequel SUV
Unfortunately, its 73kW power module cost of $500 per kW means the Sequel's powertrain alone would cost about $36,500 (£20,200) to make. So is it really more than a pipe dream?
Telegraph Motoring managed to interview one of the most interesting men at the show, GM's director of alternative fuels, Larry Burns. Larry is in charge of the fuel-cell programme and has been given the highly ambitious task of making it production ready by 2010.
How genuine is the Sequel's 300-mile range?
"It is genuine, it's on an EPA driving cycle and we think it's possible to extend it farther. We've got a lot of redundant components on the Sequel, with back-up mechanical braking and steering systems.
"Taking these off should increase the range and we can also improve the efficiency of the fuel-cell stack. I think the potential is to get 350 to 370 miles on 8kg of compressed hydrogen fuel in three tanks, and then we can go to liquid.
" Liquid hydrogen needs a different sort of storage geometry, but we can get more in. We are running two separate research programmes for liquid and compressed hydrogen and we'll continue to do so. We're very pleased with the progress on liquid fuel."
Rick Wagoner [GM chief executive] says it's "doable but not affordable." What exactly does he mean?
"The Sequel is a real car and it's doable in a manufacturing sense, but it's still 10 times more costly than we would need it to be for volume production; we need to get down to about $50 per kW. By 2010 I really do believe that we will have a validated power system that will be down to $50 per KW. That's what my boss has instructed me to do.
"I'm feeling confident because we've started to validate our feelings about the project. The fuel-cell vehicle has a tenth as many moving parts as an internal combustion car and engineers will tell you that moving parts are expensive to test and make.
" All the Sequel's fuel-cell stack has are 372 sheets, in layers, of polymers, diffusion media and gas and water. The only moving parts are the compressor motor and that's a known quantity.
"We've also looked at how we could volume-produce it and the auto industry is pretty good at that. We've looked at process steps, materials and labour content, and we can go to our suppliers with a target price. So we know the advantage of volume.
"Sequel will have to last 6,000 hours or 150,000 miles. That's the target, but I'm confident that in 2010 we will have the durability, the design and the cost."
What about the high price of the platinum in the catalysts? Won't that always make fuel cells prohibitively expensive?
"We're tied to a commodity price on the rare metals in the catalyst, but GM has developed deep confidence on catalyst thrifting, using just enough platinum on the cell surfaces and understanding you have to use the entire surface by managing the gas and water flows."
You have Sequel and the Zafira-based Hydrogen 3 fuel-cell projects. Which one is most important?
"We have two development paths: the reinvent-the-car, skateboard Sequel and another one, which keeps the same vehicle architecture. We'll keep both development paths, but the thing to remember about the keep-the-same-architecture path is the cooling.
"A fuel cell produces the same kind of heat as an ICE [internal combustion engine] but with an ICE the heat escapes through the tailpipe. In a fuel cell it has nowhere to go. You need a lot of radiators, which aren't easy to fit in a normal vehicle.
"There are also the Sequel's wheel-hub motors, which mean you can make the brakes smaller and eventually use the motor as part of the wheel structure. The ultimate idea is that you would have corner modules, dealing with traction, torque, suspension and braking, which would be mass neutral, and they'd work on a hybrid car as well."
What's the future for Sequel?
"It will remain our advanced test bed for some years: 2005, '06, '07, maybe '08. We're researching on traction, torque, braking and wheel control. Control is the issue here."
A lot of people believe a hydrogen future is many years away, yet GM is spending billions developing fuel cells. What's your view?
"I believe our industry is not robust. If the future of our industry depends on the future of petroleum and our growth is gated by the politics of oil, I don't think that's where we want to be.
"Hydrogen infrastructure is not as big a deal as people seem to think it is. If you have hydrogen supplied at, say, 12,000 gas stations, which is about 10 per cent of all US gas stations, then 70 per cent of the population of the US would be within two miles of a hydrogen pump.
"That's hydrogen available in the 100 largest cities and a station every 25 miles on the freeway. The cost would be $12 billion, which is half the cost of the Alaskan pipeline. Now why wouldn't a US government want to do that?
"We never talk about the enormous petroleum problem the world is facing and one estimate is that it will cost $200 billion a year to keep oil supply growing at a rate to keep up with demand."
Rick Wagoner talks about taking the car out of the environmental question, but there are other issues about personal transportation, such as congestion. Any ideas on that?
"There are four concerns for the future of transportation: energy, the environment, congestion and safety. Don't forget that however tragic the tsunami in the Far East was, 15 times that many people are killed a year on the world's roads. It's important to realise that not all externalities are solved by the hydrogen fuel-cell car.
"If you look at congestion, we've got geo-positioning systems, especially the military ones, that are accurate to within one centimetre. They're standard in our systems in cars right now.
"We've also got wireless technology where cars can communicate with each other and we know where every car is, precisely and affordably. And we also know, with digital maps, where everything else is, too: the stop signs, the traffic lights, the junctions and the street furniture.
"There's been a study recently that looked at adaptive cruise control and what percentage of cars would need to be fitted with such a system to double traffic flows on a busy road. The result? Twenty-five per cent of cars will achieve that.
"If you add up all that wireless technology, digital maps and geo positioning, you've got a paradigm shift in traffic management and safety. So what does society do with that?
"Rear-end collisions, for example: how many times do you see four cars where the lead car has braked, and then they've all braked a bit harder until the last guy hits the car in front? I've driven as the last guy in [experimental] platoons of cars where the car up front has been communicating with all the other cars about its speed, its turn degrees and its braking.
"Think about the London congestion charge system with this technology. The zone could be done with no money changing hands. They would know where you are and how long you were in the zone and deduct the money from your account.
"Maybe it's a better answer, but I'm not saying it would make a better world, although the technology to do all of it is here now and there will be a group of people who will say: 'let's do that now'. I wouldn't like to live in a world like that, but where does the responsibility for traffic safety and growth end up? I don't think it's the technology that will gate us here, it'll be the privacy and liability laws.
"I think you do need to use some of this stuff, though. Like low-speed adaptive cruise control in stop-start traffic. The cars follow each other and control their steering, starting and stopping, while you can get on with something else, like reading the paper!"
telegraph.co.uk |
