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Technology Stocks : Ballard Power -world leader zero-emission PEM fuel cells -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas Stewart who wrote (3527)	12/24/1998 9:52:00 PM
From: Sleeperz	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 5827

The exhaust ICE of a Hybrid car is ULTRA low and could be better than that of a FC with a reformer. Combine that with the fact that the fuel infrastructure for a hybrid is already in place. The ICE in a hybrid recharges the batteries and provides High Speed operation. Why bother with a FC and Batteries, it defeats the purpose of a FC unless the FC cannot provide the electric current needed for acceleration. CL Why is a hybrid car a threat to fuel cell cars? Sure the urgency of putting a fuel cell in the car is diminished, but ultimately the ICE in a hybrid car could be replaced by a fuel cell, right? Wouldn't that increase the efficiency of the hybrid car (just like the garden variety ICE) by a factor of two? In other words, what is inconsistent about hybrid cars and fuel cell-powered cars?

To: Thomas Stewart who wrote (3527)	12/26/1998 1:34:00 PM
From: Sid Turtlman	Respond to of 5827

Thomas: You are correct -- there is nothing inconsistent about a fc car also being a hybrid. In fact, that is exactly what they will be, according to what is known so far about the planned Daimler design. This is because the reformer, which extracts hydrogen from a hydrocarbon, takes a while to warm up and start working. It has to get to about 600 degrees F to work on methanol, and about 1800 or so to work on gasoline. Presumably it will burn some fuel, creating some air pollution, to do so, although I could imagine making use of battery power to get the heat up. In any event, potential customers aren't going to be too enthusiastic about a car that can't move for five or ten minutes after they turn the key, so fc cars will have to contain a large and powerful battery to move the car along until enough hydrogen can be created to start up the fc engine. Another approach would be to have a hefty hydrogen storage tank with enough fuel to handle the warmup stage, but that may add even more weight and expense. Assuming they go the battery route, then the fc car will really be a hybrid, even though it won't be called that. This is a different kind of hybrid than the Toyota and Honda cars, which divide the responsibilities between the battery and the ice engine based on speed and acceleration. I view the Toyota/Honda type of hybrid as a threat to fc cars because they can deliver most or all of the performance (on all counts, including environmental) today that Daimler/Ballard hopes to achieve six or more years from now. And they do so at a lower capital cost, and with no need to spend one penny changing the world's fueling infrastructure. Even Daimler has a hybrid program in the works, and is planning to introduce a hybrid in 2003. Even if fc engines were twice as efficient as i.c.e. engines, which they are not, it still wouldn't make sense to use them in the Toyota/Honda style of hybrid in lieu of the i.c.e. I.C.E engines are actually very efficient and clean once they are humming away at highway speeds. It is starting out from a traffic light that they are at their dirtiest and least efficient. How efficient and clean you want to say they are depends very much on what mix of stop-and-go vs. steady cruising you choose. By handing over the stop-and-go to the battery, the hybrid allows the i.c.e. to do only what it does best. In other words, these hybrids make proposed fc cars six years behind the times already. I believe that within two years or less the big car companies will realize that there is no point in sinking more money into an inferior technology, and put the fc project on the far back burner. The only way fc cars have a hope of being better than a hybrid in efficiency and emissions would be if there were a major breakthrough in producing and storing hydrogen, which would allow the elimination of the reformer, creating a true zero emission vehicle. I will discuss this more in the note I am about to write to Bill Peavey.