GM's Equinox Fuel Cell Vehicle in "stealth"  garb for publicity-shy celebs.

By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

It's been almost two weeks since we took GM's fuel cell Equinox for an extended spin – the first loan of one of the hydrogen-powered cars to a journalist, the company says.

(Yes, we're bragging, but we also mention that because, well, because we're bragging.) 

Anyhow, time to stop dithering and start reporting.

The news is that, I'm happy to report, the Equinox Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle, or FCEV, is quite a bit faster than GM publicly admits (more about that a little later) and is as comfortable and driveable as I'd remembered from a short spin during a press event back in October.

I'd been bugging GM for months to let us have one to use for a week or so we could see how it stood up to the daily grind in Southern California traffic with a variety of drivers from the Edmunds stable behind the wheel.

That hasn't happened – the hydrogen station being built near our office in Santa Monica hasn't opened yet and GM won't let us have one for a prolonged period until there's fuel nearby.

But the company did agree to let Green Car Advisor have one overnight, with restrictions – no refueling, so no long trips.

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By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

CASCAIS, Portugal – Nissan Motor Co. which has promised to introduce an electric vehicle in North American in 2010, now sees enough market potential for battery-powered electric cars that it is planning a second model for as early as 2012.

The Japanese carmaker was late to the game with gas-electric hybrids and doesn't intend to get caught with a bare product portfolio as cheaper and more reliable batteries make EVs an economic and practical choice in coming years, product planning chief Tom Lane told Green Car Advisor in an interview at Nissan's global vehicle show-and-drive program in this coastal resort town just west of Lisbon.

Lane said that while Nissan began its green planning half a decade ago with a broad slate of possible technologies, economic and scientific changes have pushed battery-electric vehicles to the forefront as a near- and midterm market strategies to meet increased political and social demand for cleaner, more efficient vehicles.

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Fuel cell hybrid truck uses batteries and hydrogen with quick-change fuel tanks.

By Scott Doggett and John O'Dell

French automaker PSA Peugeot Citroën and British fuel-cell developer Intelligent Energy have built a battery-electric delivery truck outfitted with a hydrogen-powered fuel cell stack to significantly extend the vehicle's range between battery charges.

Sounds good, but the companies' announcement this week has simply stirred up more debate over the efficiency of hydrogen as an automotive fuel.

One key element of the system's design – easily swappable pressurized hydrogen fuel tanks – is aimed at answering concerns about the lack of a hydrogen fuel infrastructure to support widespread use of fuel cells.

But fuel cell and auto industry specialists interviewed by Green Car Advisor raised questions about financial feasibility and public safety.

Some also question whether an extended range electric vehicle that relies on compressed hydrogen fuel is better for the environment than a battery-electric vehicle that relies on electricity from the commercial power grid

Like a Volt, But Bigger
The French-British partnership's H2Origin Partner vehicle is an electric-drive delivery truck that uses a 10-kilowatt fuel cell system fueled by hydrogen gas stored in 10,000-psi fuel tanks to produce electricity for the drive system.

Essentiallly, it is a truck version of GM's E-Flex and Ford's HySeries electric car concepts,  using a fuel cell instead of a gasoline or diesel generator  to produce electricity on board the vehicle.

The developers say it can travel up to 186 miles before the hydrogen is depleted – triple the 62 miles the battery-only version gets between charges.

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By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

Angela Coletti was trying to maintain a cheerful demeanor, but even over the slightly crackly On-Star connection she didn't sound quite as cheerful as usual.

I'd just called to tell her that I might have broken the very expensive Chevrolet Equinox Fuel-Cell Electric Vehicle (that's FCEV in both corporate and electric-car talk) she'd delivered into my hands a few minutes earlier at the start of what was to have been a two-day loan last week.

I really hadn't done anything terrible, I asured Coletti, one of the "driver relationship managers" for GM's Equinox FCEV program.

I just gave it a little extra gas coming around a wide corner near my home. The tires chirped for a nano-second and when i looked down at the instrument panel there it was -- a bright blue "CALL SERVICE CENTER NOW"  capped by the yellow silhouette of a car emblazoned with an open ended wrench,  just in case the other message wasn't clear.

"Does it say 'call the service center soon'?" Coletti asked in a hopeful tone.

Nope. NOW.

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Widespread use of hydrogen as an automotive fuel is anywhere from a decade to 25 years in the future, says the president of Shell Oil's U.S. operation.

Obstacles to hydrogen are mainly infrastructure-related and include the difficulty in converting retail gas stations to dispense the fuel in either liquid or gaseous form, Shell 's John Hofmeister told a Sacramento, Calif., audience Monday at a conference on low-carbon fuels.

His remarks were reported by Greenwire, a subscription news service.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has pushed for development of a so-called hydrogen highway in his state, saying a series of hydrogen filling stations linking California's main population centers would help speed introduction of hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicles.

But Hofmeister, who is retiring in July, said building that highway "is going to be a long, drawn-out process. These infrastructure issues are going to continue getting in the way."

His comments appeared to be a response to a call for increased development of hydrogen stations by fuel providers that was issued earlier this month by General Motors Corp.'s strategic planning chief Larry Burns.

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Indiana high school team's fuel economy record-setting 'cheese wedge.'

By Scott Doggett, Contributor

Smart motoring, a cheese-wedge design and high winds propelled a $3,500, gasoline-fueled 3-wheeler built and driven by a team of high school kids past a pack of much-pricier supermilers crafted by collegiate engineering students to win the 2008 Shell Eco-marathon Americas fuel-efficiency competition Saturday.

The team, from Mater Dei High School in Evansville, Indiana, took home the $10,000 grand prize with a fuel-efficiency run equivalent to 2,843.4 miles per gallon.

Strong, sustained winds in Southern California over the weekend, often gusting to 50 miles per hour, plagued all of the teams and rolled several of the lightweight vehicles competing at the California Speedway in Fontana, better known as the home track for the Auto Club 500 and other NASCAR races each year.

The purpose of the Eco-marathon is not speed but high mileage. Teams build ultra-lightweight, streamlined, one-seat vehicles that use tiny internal combustion engines or alternatives such as solar powered or hydrogen fuel-cell powered electric drive—and make repeated solo runs on a flat, 9.7-mile track course.

In a twist some competitors viewed as dumb luck and others grudgingly decided was brilliant design, the vertical air foil shape (think cheese wedge) of the two gasoline engine vehicles entered by Mater Dei benefited immensely from the hair-blower conditions.

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By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

Ford Motor Co. said today that it intends to cut greenhouse gas emissions from its nationwide fleet of new cars and trucks by at least 30 percent by 2020.

The company is the first U.S, automaker to publicly announce a GHG reductions goal. It acted in response to shareholder resolutions from a number of major investment groups concerned about climate change.

Because automotive greenhouse gas emissions are directly related to fuel consumption, Ford's goal means the company intends to provide a 30 percent increase in average fuel economy.

That's not particularly bold of Ford as it is the same level of improvement demanded in the new federal Energy Bill that was signed into law late last year and set a 35-miles-per-gallon corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE, requirement for the entire auto industry to meet by 2020.

But announcing a goal and laying out the steps it intends to follow to achieve it is a major move by an automaker, the investor groups pushing for such action said.

In a press conference staged in New York City, representatives of those groups, including the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility and the Investor Network on Climate Risk praised Ford for taking what one called a"giant step forward" in corporate leadership on global warming.

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GM's message is emblazoned on slide accompanying GM executive's speech chastizing hydrogen industry.

By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Crusty corporate vice chairman Bob Lutz usually is cast as General Motor's hitman when there's a hard-nosed message to be delivered. But the automaker this week is calling on soft-spoken strategist Larry Burns to blast the hydrogen industry for not working hard enough to realize what should be a common goal.

The world needs fuel-cell electric vehicles, but the hydrogen industry is not stepping up to do its part, Burns will tell hundreds of industry insiders in a speech at the National Hydrogen Association's annual conference here this morning.

"There does not appear to be a sense of urgency" by hydrogen suppliers to build the refining, delivery and refueling infrastructure now needed to support the fuel cell cars that automakers including GM are ready to start producing, he said in a pre-speech interview with Green Car Advisor.

"We need to build more of these cars, but why do it if there are no fuel stations out there?"

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By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

Overlooked in the scramble to relay what the California Air Resources Board did about zero emission vehicles at its meeting last week was what the board did about fuel for the fuel-cell electric vehicles it envisions as the centerpiece of the state's ZEV strategy going forward.

In a move that could be as significant – and controversial – as the original decision to require major automakers to build emission-free cars, the board directed its staff to look into means of pushing the fuel industry to provide adequate hydrogen fueling support for the fuel cell vehicles.

The state's ZEV Mandate as amended last week now requires production of a minimum of 7,500 fuel-cell electric vehicles with 200 mile range for sale in California between 2012 and 2015. But there are only 24 hydrogen stations in the state and not many more on the drawing boards.

Mary Nichols, CARB's chairwoman, said Tuesday that the board wants to be able to "resolve this chicken or egg situation" by ending a "shortage of hydrogen fuel stations that the automakers say is holding back development" of fuel cell vehicles.

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Fuel-cell Highlander successfully logged 2,300 miles on Alcan Highway, but  even if Toyota built retail version, there's little hydrogen fuel available.

By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The conference is about early commercialization of hydrogen fueling and fuel-cell products and services, but the buzzwords still are "research" and "study," not "build" and "sell."

Granted, the National Hydrogen Association conference has just begun and there are, literally, scores of papers being delivered. Some do talk about things with real market potential – things like Plug Power's hydrogen fuel-cell electric fork lift and Air Products' on-site hydrogen fuel stations for commercial and government fleets. But most still deal with what could be, after a lot more research and development and testing gets done.

A hydrogen economy that relieves our dependency on foreign oil may be in our future, but it hasn't yet arrived.

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