71 things everyone should know about hydrogen cars

Here are 71 things everyone should know about hydrogen cars:

1.  The Toyota FCHV (Highlander Hybrid) hydrogen fuel cell vehicle has a driving range of 516 miles and gets 80 miles per kilogram of hydrogen.

2.  The cost of hydrogen produced today from wind power (without any subsidies) would be less than the equivalent of gasoline at $3.50 per gallon.

3.  The cost of hydrogen from wind power just mentioned includes paying for the entire hydrogen infrastructure (i.e. hydrogen fueling stations and hydrogen pipelines).

4.  The Hindenburg disaster was not caused by hydrogen.

5.  Hydrogen cars with high-pressure hydrogen tanks are safe.

6.  Hydrogen cars will likely use GPS devices for drivers to locate the nearest hydrogen fueling station.

7.  Hydrogen cars will likely use run-flat tires.

8.  GM has launched a program called Project Driveway where 100 Chevy Equinox hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will be driven by customers.

9.  Maria Recchia-O’Neill, a Project Driveway participant, said the following about the Chevy Equinox hydrogen fuel cell vehicle:

“Driving this car has been one of the best experiences of my entire life.”

10.  Tom Williams, a Project Driveway participant, said the following about the Chevy Equinox hydrogen fuel cell vehicle:

“I really love this car.”

11.  Daniel Krach, a Project Driveway participant, said the following about the Chevy Equinox hydrogen fuel cell vehicle:

“I really love driving this vehicle.”

12.  Larry Burns, vice president of R&D and strategic planning for GM, said in 2006 that hydrogen fuel cell cars will cost the same as gasoline-powered cars when they reach a production level of one million units.  “Lack of scale is the primary reason for the high costs of fuel cell vehicles,” he said.

13.  Daniel O’Connell, who is in charge of commercializing fuel cell vehicles for GM, echoed this last week at an energy conference in Syracuse (he also said GM could be ready to do this within five years).

14.  Here is a hydrogen commercial from Honda.

15.  Here is a hydrogen commercial from GM.

16.  Here is a hydrogen commercial from BMW.

17.  Jochen Schmalholz, BMW director of clean energy, said that:

“Hydrogen is the only viable solution to carbon dioxide free mobility in the future.”

18.  T. Boone Pickens’ energy plan shows that he knows very little about hydrogen cars.

19.  Toyota engineers took an editor from Road & Track magazine along on a trip last September in the Toyota FCHV from Fairbanks, Alaska to Vancouver, British Columbia (click here to watch the YouTube video).

20.  Toyota noted in the official press release for the trip that:

“Whether sharing the road with an unimpressed group of buffalo or sailing along a vast open stretch of tundra at 90 miles an hour, the Highlander FCHV performed without a glitch for seven days and 2300 miles.”

21.  Bob Carter, Toyota Division group vice president and general manager, said in the same press release for the FCHV trip that:

“The development of Toyota’s hydrogen fuel-cell powertrains continue to move forward and mature at an impressive pace, far in advance of an infrastructure that will be necessary to support them.”

22.  I will win my bet with Joseph Romm.

23.  You can listen to the very inspirational song “Hydrogen Highway” here and watch the YouTube video here.

24.  The European Union and private companies are investing $1.5 billion to develop hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

25.  Takeo Fukui, CEO of Honda, said the following about the Honda FCX Clarity hydrogen fuel cell car last month:

“This is a must-have technology for the future of the Earth.  Honda will work hard to mainstream fuel-cell cars.”

26.  Hydrogen cars can be fueled in as little as three minutes with technology developed by Linde.

27.  Hydrogen fuel cells are twice as efficient as internal combustion engines.

28.  If GE wakes up to the opportunity, they could become a force within the hydrogen industry.

29.  Kazuaki Umezu, head of Honda’s Automobile New Model Center where the FCX Clarity hydrogen fuel cell car is built, said last month:

“Basically, we can mass produce these now.  We are waiting for the infrastructure to catch up.”

The following eight items cover plug-in battery technology which is a competitor of hydrogen fuel cells:

30.  Honda CEO Takeo Fukui blasted plug-in battery technology in a Wall Street Journal interview last month by saying:

“Wall Street Journal: Other auto makers, including Nissan Motor Co. and General Motors Corp., are planning to launch electric vehicles, but Honda isn’t offering this alternative.  Why not?

Takeo Fukui: We feel the practical feasibility of the electric vehicle is very limited.  The biggest issue is driving distance.  The other issue is the recharging time.  The FCX Clarity can be recharged in one minute.  With the electric vehicle, it can take several hours.  However, this is not to deny the possibility of battery electric vehicles.  It’s very useful for vehicles with restricted applications, like golf carts.”

31.  The following AutoblogGreen post notes that Steve Ellis, Manager of Fuel Cell Marketing for Honda, said that:

“There is a group of ‘EV Zealots’ who are constantly criticizing all hydrogen related work based on flawed arguments and without examining all the costs of a plug-in system.”

32.  The recent Atlantic Monthly article discusses all of the problems that GM is having with the Chevy Volt battery and makes it clear that the 40-mile battery range claimed for the vehicle is completely unproven.

33.  The Toyota Prius plug-in car can only travel 7 miles on the current nickel-metal hydride batteries.

34.  Jaycie Chitwood, senior strategic planner for advanced technologies at Toyota, said that the company expects that the battery driving range for plug-in hybrid cars is only expected to improve to around 10-20 miles when lithium-ion batteries are used in the future.

35.  Bill Reinert, national manager for advanced technologies at Toyota, said in a recent article in the Los Angeles Times that:

“Battery cars have real limitations.  Hydrogen technology is getting much better.”

36.  The following earth2tech blog entry discusses how Bill Reinert from Toyota was confronted at the recent plug-in conference in Washington, D.C.:

“Standing next to a converted plug-in Prius (Reinert is in the brown jacket), rough language and impassioned rhetoric was exchanged, with neither side conceding anything.  Much of the argument boiled down to the perceived demand for fully electric vehicles: Reinert and Toyota contend that there isn’t a viable market; Plug In America says quite the opposite.”

37.  Plug-in battery advocates really, really, really do not want you to click on the following link.

38.  Honda will be leasing the FCX Clarity hydrogen fuel cell car through three Southern California car dealerships.

39.  Hyundai is planning on producing 10,000 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles by 2012.

40.  A dirty little secret is that car companies are terrified that customers will soon realize that buying a new car powered by gasoline is a terrible investment and instead decide to buy a used car or wait until hydrogen cars are ready.

41.  The following Reuters article published in June 2007 notes that GM moved:

“More than 500 fuel cell engineers and experts from advanced development laboratories to engineering functions aimed at preparing the fuel cell for commercial sale.”

42.  The same Reuters article also mentioned that:

“GM has said it will likely have vehicles powered by fuel cells in showrooms by 2012.”

43.  Honda is going to produce 200 FCX Clarity hydrogen fuel cell cars over the next three years which will be leased to customers.

44.  Honda has built the world’s first dedicated hydrogen fuel cell car production facility.  Pictures of the facility can be viewed at the following link.

45.  There is enough wind power in the U.S. to produce enough hydrogen to replace all of the gasoline consumed in the U.S. and still provide 50% of the country’s electricity for homes and businesses.

46.  Virgin Atlantic is using three Chevy Equinox hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for their airport shuttle service.

47.  Honda rolled the first hydrogen fuel cell car off the production line in a historic ceremony last month.

48.  Larry Burns, vice president of R&D and strategic planning for GM, has said that there could be “millions” of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on the road in the next decade.

49.  Mercedes announced that small-scale production of their B-Class F-Cell hydrogen fuel cell vehicle will begin in early 2010.

50.  The following Resource Investor article from July 2005 addresses the issue of platinum in hydrogen fuel cells.  Here are two excerpts:

“Dan O’Connell, a GM fuel cell engineer, says he is confident that the company can cut platinum usage by two to three times.”

“Katsuhiko Hirose, head of Toyota’s fuel cell project, points to the developments made in catalytic converters, which use platinum to clean up car exhaust fumes.  He says when California adopted laws requiring catalytic converters, manufacturers sounded similar warnings as the devices needed more than 100g of platinum each.  Thirty years on, platinum use has fallen 99%.”

51.  Daniel O’Connell, who is in charge of commercializing fuel cell vehicles for GM, once again addressed the issue of platinum in hydrogen fuel cells last week at an energy conference in Syracuse.  The comments made by Katsuhiko Hirose three years ago were echoed in the following excerpt:

“Automotive manufacturers have greatly reduced the amount of platinum they use in catalytic converters, and O’Connell said the same progress will likely occur with fuel cells.”

52.  Hydrogen is big in Iceland.

53.  Water vapor emissions from hydrogen cars will not cause more global warming.

54.  Honda says on their website that:

“Honda has brought the fuel cell vehicle from the lab to the fleet and finally to the public.  The major barrier now is building up the hydrogen supply infrastructure.”

55.  Richard Branson has urged governments around the world to build hydrogen fueling stations.

56.  Larry Burns, vice president of R&D and strategic planning for GM, recently gave a very inspirational speech about hydrogen fuel cell cars at the 2008 National Hydrogen Association annual conference in Sacramento.

57.  Here is the first of three quotes from the speech by Larry Burns that I found particularly intriguing:

“The potential societal and customer benefits of fuel cell electric vehicles are clear and compelling.  Fuel cell technology promises to deliver family-sized automobiles that are fun to drive, safe, look great, refuel fast, go far between fill-ups, and are emissions-free and petroleum-free.  And very importantly it holds the promise to do all of this while keeping automobiles affordable to own and operate.  Quite honestly, no other technology offers this exciting potential.”

58.  Here is the second of three quotes from the speech by Larry Burns that I found particularly intriguing:

“It’s great to have small numbers of these vehicles running around.  But be very, very clear, the mission is to heavily penetrate the 70 million cars and trucks that are built worldwide each year with this technology.”

59.  Here is the third of three quotes from the speech by Larry Burns that I found particularly intriguing:

“We feel it is past time for the necessary infrastructure to accelerate.  What is urgently needed is sufficient investment by energy providers and the cooperation of government to assure auto companies that the required hydrogen infrastructure will be in place when we deploy our next generation of fuel cell electric vehicles.”

60.  Oil companies do not want to build the hydrogen fueling stations, because they do not want to fund a competitor to oil and fueling stations in general are a very tough business.

61.  The following article notes that Katsuhiko Hirose, Project General Manager for Fuel Cell System Development for Toyota, said at the 2008 National Hydrogen Association annual conference in Sacramento that:

“The industry can overcome all these challenges (i.e. the five miracles needed for diffusion of fuel cell cars that were mentioned in the movie “Who Killed the Electric Car?”) except for the efficient diffusion of hydrogen stations.”

62.  Paul Brubaker, head of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration for the federal Department of Transportation, said the following about hydrogen fuel cell cars in March 2008:

“The reality is, we cannot wait.  We have to figure out what to do to reach critical mass and create the infrastructure to get these cars on the road sooner than later.”

63.  GM has calculated that only 12,000 hydrogen fueling stations would need to be built in order to have a fueling station within two miles of 70% of the entire U.S. population and one every 25 miles on the freeways between the largest 100 cities.

Hydrogen fueling stations currently cost around $2 million each to build.  However, this cost will decrease as more stations are built.  Therefore, at an average of $1.5 million per fueling station, the initial 12,000 hydrogen fueling stations would likely cost around $18 billion (which is between 3-4% of the current cost of the Iraq War which is over $500 billion).

64.  The Department of Energy is trying to eliminate critical hydrogen infrastructure research programs (prepare to be shocked and outraged).

65.  Hydrogen pipelines are needed if the hydrogen is going to be produced from anything other than natural gas (e.g. hydrogen fueling stations with on-site production from solar power are not viable, because only a small amount of hydrogen is produced).

66.  Hydrogen pipelines are the solution to the intermittency problem of solar and wind power.

67.  Polymer hydrogen pipelines are far superior to carbon steel pipelines in terms of both cost and performance.

68.  Hydrogen Discoveries has the best polymer hydrogen pipeline technology.

69.  Hydrogen fueling stations and hydrogen pipelines are a trillion dollar investment opportunity.

70.  The Hydrogen Manhattan Project will change the world.

71.  Paul Brubaker should be Hydrogen Czar.