Doing a sell job for fuel-cell cars of the future
From the San Jose Mercury News...
Doing a sell job for fuel-cell cars of the future
April 18, 1999
BY MATT NAUMAN
San Jose Mercury News Auto Editor
Fuel-cell cars might be coming in 2004. That's
when DaimlerChrysler says it will put one on
sale.
Or, they might be coming in goodly numbers
by 2010, say, or by 2020.
It remains a best-guess situation.
One man, however, futurist Peter Schwartz,
says he knows the exact date: July 4, 2000.
That's when "Minority Report," a Steven
Spielberg sci-fi epic is scheduled to make its
debut. In it, Tom Cruise drives a fuel-cell car.
Schwartz, whose Emeryville, Calif., company,
Global Business Network, also helped create
the film "Deep Impact," calls Spielberg's film
"the anti-'Blade Runner' movie" with its
positive vision of the future.
Schwartz gave a big-picture view of a
near-future world where fuel-cell vehicles help
solve energy and transportation problems at a
conference here recently. His company, which
develops probable scenarios for automotive
and oil companies and other businesses when
it's not helping write movies, boldly predicts,
"Fuel cells are going to win."
Dozens of other speakers, mainly academic
researchers, scientists and engineers, at the
Fuel-Cell Vehicle Technology Conference at
the University of California-Davis, tended to
be more reserved than Schwartz. But they
weren't as much fun.
It was Schwartz, after all, who predicted of
fuel-cell vehicles: "This is how the Chinese will
all end up with cars and not destroy the
planet."
And: "Your kids are not going to want the
smelly, old, gasoline cars of the 1950s."
The other speakers discussed the current state
of the art of fuel-cell vehicles as well as the
technology's advantages and disadvantages.
Their comments reflected concerns about cost
and infrastructure as well as the still lively
debate over which fuel -- hydrogen, methanol
or gasoline -- is the most likely to power fuel
cells.
What emerged from this conference, the first
at UC-Davis since it became one of two U.S.
Energy Department designated centers of
excellence for graduate studies into fuel cells,
was a consensus that fuel cells are getting a
serious look as the alternative-fuel vehicle that
will shape the future.
Fuel cells convert a fuel into hydrogen, which
then is mixed with oxygen to make electricity.
That electricity is used to power a car's
electric motor. Water vapor is the only
tail-pipe emission.
"It's kind of like the Holy Grail. They really
look promising," said Dan Sperling,
co-director of the UC-Davis Fuel-Cell
Vehicle Center and a professor of civil
engineering and environmental science and
policy.
"I think there's broad agreement among
environmentalists, policy makers and even the
auto industry that fuel cells are the
next-generation technology," said Jason Mark,
senior transportation analyst with the
Berkeley-based Union of Concerned
Scientists. "It's the car we'll be driving into the
next millennium."
His group's concern is what fuel will power
fuel cells. Using gasoline might not allow the
technology to deliver on its environmental
promise, he said. Mark was part of lively
lunchtime discussion Wednesday that included
representatives from Shell, Chevron and BP
Amoco.
While "there's no obvious show-stopper" in
fuel-cell's future path, Sperling said, "there's
been very little work done." It's only in recent
years that the pace of research -- by private
companies, big and small, and universities --
has quickened.
In Washington on March 17, DaimlerChrysler
showed off its NECAR4 (new electric car,
4th edition), a hydrogen-powered fuel-cell car
that it billed as "the first drivable bfuel-cell car
introduced in the United States that
demonstrates dynamic driving performance
and zero exhaust emissions." But its liquid
hydrogen must be at minus 423 degrees
Fahrenheit. The company has said its next
fuel-cell concepts will use methanol. The goal
is production-ready technology by 2004.
Ford says it'll have a drivable fuel-cell concept
ready later this year.
Raphael Edinger, a DaimlerChrysler
researcher at the Davis conference, said fuel
cells will be used to power both cars and
houses in the next century.
"I think there's really a future in it to get away
from the fossil fuel economies," he said.
In California, the state has mandates that
require a certain number of zero-emission
vehicles to be sold by 2003.
"If fuel-cells are produced, they can qualify for
zero-emission vehicle credits. They would
then be compliant vehicles," said Michael
Kenny, executive officer of the California Air
Resources Board.
The likeliest scenario for 2003, Kenny said, is
a mix of electric, hybrid and much-improved
gasoline-burning vehicles. But, in the 2004 to
2006 time frame, he said, "fuel cells become
very viable. That's how close we are."
Cost remains a big issue.
"In 2005, the fuel cells are not going to be the
same cost as the gasoline car. No way," said
Sperling. "But companies might feel it's far
enough along and in their interest to, in a sense
subsidize the cost to sell it at a competitive
price just to get a leg up on the competition."
Schwartz summed up the conference
succinctly.
"It's the end of the internal-combustion engine
we are talking about here."
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