Hyundai Motor To Commercialize Fuel Cell Vehicle

Why?

What is their objective?

Fuel-Cells have so many shortcomings it simply doesn't make any sense pursuing that technology for vehicles without stating a goal.

What criteria must the technology achieve to be considered successful? And if that initial testing goes well, what will they do with it?

The use of hydrogen is unlikely to be either as clean or as efficient as the hybrid I just drove to work today. It most definitely is not affordable. And it doesn't actually reduce our dependence on imported oil. So I can't imagine an announcement (void of any detail) for 4 years in the future to be anything more than just a "Hey, look at we're planning to do!" attention-getter. But I guess we are going to have to put up with that hype until we actually see hybrid competition with Toyota/Lexus. Honda's design somewhat deficient and the quantity is limited. Ford's design offers great potential, but again too few are available. GM is simply a joke; the pickup they offer isn't really even a hybrid. That's it. Until then, talk about fuel-cells being the replacement for gas-guzzlers (rather than the natural progression from a "full" hybrid) will continue.

 

I think in Wired, I read an interview with a chief technology guy in China who thought hydrogen cars was the future. Given my base opinion that the hydrogen economy is BS, he made me think again.

I now think that in countries that do not have an electrical grid infrastructure, hydrogen will become the energy carrier. In the developed world, electricity and batteries will prevail.

I'm reasonably sure that GM's overall plan is to have the US subsidize its fuel cell car program, in order to be a player in China, etc. I imagine Hyundai is following a similar path (at least as far as competing in China goes).

 

They are doing both the bottom-up & top-down approaches. It's to ensure their "full" hybrid design is truly complete in every respect... so much so that they can plan to phaseout their gas-guzzler design in favor of hybrids, which is exactly what they have stated. Business risk is significantly reduced when testing is that thorough. It makes the ultra-long-term goal rather obvious too.

Toyota's goal for 2010 is to provide the hybrid option in every model they offer. At that point, the market can choose which they prefer. It will be a decision like transmission was decades ago.

Why Hyundai is drawing attention to fuel-cell development rather than just sticking to offering their first hybrid is a mystery. Of course, we still have no clue if GM was ever serious with their fuel-cell development either. It looked promising. But without an infrastructure to support it or any type of consumer phase in, it was a risk on such a massive scale that the risk was horribly unrealistic.

 

I hear what you are getting at John. It would make more sense for auto manufacturers that want a part of the market to take the proper, logical steps in doing so, rather than try to skip ones in-between, which are attainable now.

 

Can you give us some facts to back these statements up? I don't really have much information on this and would like to learn more about this.

 

There are lots. Do some searching. Finding them yourself will give you the sense of frustration some of us here already feel.

Hydrogen is naturally found in many substances. The most common is water. The catch is you need an energy source to extract it, like electricity. That electricity is rarely from a clean or renewable source. A common one is from oil. See the problem? Using oil to create electricity can actually be more polluting than just using it for gas instead. The resulting hydrogen gallon-per-mile equivalent you get from it isn't anywhere near as high either. It's a lose-lose situation. Using coal for the electricity can be even worse in terms of overall emissions.

Some were saying for awhile that natural gas was the key. Get the hydrogen from that. But the reduced supply due to the hurricanes and the fact that it isn't renewable pretty much kills that idea.

Wind is a viable solution. But unfortunately, only one source of wind-to-hydrogen generation exists in the United States: the University of Minnesota is using a research grant for that very purpose right now. Needless to say, that work is quite a few years away from being to any great numbers. Far more effort is needed. The same is true for using water to create the electricity.

Basically, when you look at the costs involved to setup the infrastructure to just create the hydrogen cleanly, you realize how much of a monumental effort it is. And that doesn't even take into account how to get it to consumers.

Once you get a feel for the magnitude of what's needed just for the fuel, take a look at the technology itself. The limited range & efficiency is quite disappointing. Reliability is so low most don't even want to address that yet. And the coldest operating temperature is 20 F degrees, not even close to what us northern folk require. The acceleration & handling of the prototypes (since they are so surprisingly heavy) won't impress anyone either. As for vehicle safety & cost, they are a complete mystery.

None of that is a problem with Prius.