GM, Honda Launch Fuel Cell Partnership

[frankxbe]

Partners aiming for mass market-ready hydrogen cars by 2020.

General Motors and Honda plan to team up in an effort to bring zero-emission hydrogen fuel-cell technology to the mass market by the end of the decade, the makers formally announced Tuesday morning.

Both GM and Honda have already begun fielding small test fleets of hydrogen-powered vehicles – as have a number of competitors including Toyota and Mercedes-Benz – but the goal of the new effort is to help solve nagging technical obstacles while driving costs down to mass-market levels. The makers also hope that by making a serious commitment to fuel cell technology they will encourage the energy industry to expand the availability of hydrogen, something essential to encourage consumer acceptance.

“The widespread use of future fuel cell vehicles requires a significant advance in cost reduction… and in the refueling infrastructure that will support them,” Tetsuo Iwamura, president of American Honda Motor Co., said during a joint news conference in New York City. “Two companies can do more together than the simple sum of our individual efforts.”
http://www.thedetroitbureau.com/2013/07/gm-honda-launch-fuel-cell-partnership/

Logical partners GM had an experimental hydrogen Fuel cell van in the mid
60's and Honda has been working on their Hydrogen fuel cell cars for a while.
Maybe together they can make it work

 

[Rodzilla]

it's the refueling stations...when will they build them?when there's enough cars on the road to make money at it.when will there be enough cars sold to make money refueling them?when you can conveniently refuel and use them as a regular car....the whole fuel cell thing just keeps on circling the drain like that..sucks,i think they're a great idea,but it is what it is

 

[2point1]

Back in the late 90's all the auto mfg's were partnering up with Ballard Power Systems to use Ballard fuel cells. I wonder if that has changed.

 

[frankxbe]

it's the refueling stations...when will they build them?when there's enough cars on the road to make money at it.when will there be enough cars sold to make money refueling them?when you can conveniently refuel and use them as a regular car....the whole fuel cell thing just keeps on circling the drain like that..sucks,i think they're a great idea,but it is what it is

Good point about the fueling infrastructure it may have to be subsidized to start maybe and by whom? but that's another topic. Ofc There would have to be some numerosity to support fill stations or maybe add them to existing facilities much like existing propane facilities if that is feasible.
2020 is a little time yet if they indeed produce them hafta wait and see.
looks like electric momentum is slowing. Prius is the only one selling that many hybrids although Ford is making credible inroads there now. but the plug in electrics are not selling.

 

[elcoholic]

Where will the hydrogen come from? From what I have read the only commercially viable source of hydrogen is as a byproduct of making gasoline. Starting with free hydrogen gas it takes 40% of the BTU yield of a gallon of gas just to compress an equivalent hydrogen into a usable liquid form. Then there's the platinum for the fuel cell membranes, that's cheap and plentiful too? As a taxpayer I'd rather spend my money on something other than photo-op and sound bite tech. How about we reboot the space program, go mine Helium 3 on the moon and create sustainable fusion hopefully within our children's lifetime.

 

[JBL GUY]

Until we have a stable and plentiful alternative energy source, then this is just changing the storage of energy from one form to another.

It is interesting to follow the energy chain.

One of the things that helps to sell it to the general public is calling alternative (the stored energy of fossil fuels) energy sources, renewable energy sources.

I am all for clean energy to supply our needs.

But show me the numbers. This is not like our hobby where the subjectivists can stand toe to toe with the objectivists in their opinion of something.

I skimmed some of the articles from the link that was posted.

It is interesting that the authors refer to the energy produced by fuel cells, as if they actually produce energy. In truth they only release energy, much like the common lead acid storage battery.

Energy is energy to be somewhat simplistic. Until we are able to use something other than the energy from fossil fuels to provide energy for things like this, it is more of a lateral move than a move forward.

There may be less pollution generated by the end users and due to the economy of scale, possibly less pollution in the beginning of the energy chain, but is there less energy used? In other words, is it sustainable without the use of fossil fuels?

It would be great if research leads to some type of breakthrough. Time will tell.

Energy from fusion holds a lot of promise, but it seems that our science is not there yet.

I do not mean for this to drift into a political discussion.

 

[elcoholic]

Neither do I. Actually it's the politics of energy that is holding back meaningful R&D. In it's day gasoline was the miracle fuel and in terms of BTU/gal it still is. It did not require retooling the infrastructure of the country at taxpayer's expense. It was just better and the free market did the rest. Hydrogen has gone no where in the last 5 years in my industry (wireless) as stationary back-up power generation which is a much easier application than motive prime power.