"GM's Fuel Cell Equinox is Speedier Than Advertised" Green Car Advisor

GM's Fuel Cell Equinox is Speedier Than Advertised

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.

Unfortunately, the first one the GM's fuel cell team delivered went back within an hour and I spent a nervous few days worrying that I'd killed an awfully expensive vehicle.

Turns out, though, that the "service NOW" warning light that popped up after I spun the wheels coming out of a tight corner had nothing to do with my driving style but was caused by a faulty thermostat. Phew!

Anyhow, GM's fuel cell folks were interested enough in getting our take on the car that they gave me a second chance.

It wasn't a long loan – I got the Equinox at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday with less than a full tank of compressed hydrogen, no chance to refill and only about 100 miles of range, according to the dashboard fuel monitor. And I had to give it back at 3 pm the next day.

One interesting feature: GM has two graphics schemes for the vehiclke. It is loaning Equinox FCEVs to a variety of drivers around LA, Washington D.C., and New York and is breaking the list into everyday types and "celebrity" drivers (a list that can include entertainers, politicdians and other high-visibility opinion leaders).

So it has the everyman version, which has "Fuel Cell" emblazoned on the sides in foot-high letters, and a "celebrity" or "stealth" version that omits the big type so as not to draw too much attention to a driver who might, for professional or security reasons, prefer not to be noticed when out and about. I got the everyman version (left) the first time GM delivered an Equinox, but they apparently were out of 'em the second time, so I scored a stealth model (pictured up top)

Now here' s the bit about oomph.

When the General initially called to offer the car, I'd asked if we could take it out to the track where Edmunds does its testing, slap some instruments on and put it though its paces.

"Uh, no," was the response, apparently because the track was too far away from the only hydrogen fuel pump in the region, which would have necessitated flat-bedding the Equinox around for us (there might also have been just a tiny bit of reluctance to have what is, after all, an ultra-expensive, hand-built prototype subjected to a pretty harsh set of acceleration, skid pad and braking tests).

Ok. No track tests, I promised.

Notice, though, that I didn't promise not to test at all.

While waiting for the Equinox FCEV to arrive, I arranged with test department chief Dan Edmunds (he's not related to the corporate Edmunds and always has to say so -- I've suggested that he just change his name to Dan No Relation Edmunds) to attach a V-Box and run some unofficial acceleration tests on an empty stretch of a local street.

We did that on Wednesday morning, and found GM's claim that the fuel cell Equinox's electric motor will power it from zero to 60 in 12 seconds is bunk.

Over the course of three runs, we recorded a best 0-60 time of 9.3 seconds, 22 percent faster than the official company number. (Our best quarter mile was 79.3 mph in 17.1 seconds.)

The only problem with running those tests is that they ate up a lot of fuel

GM says the Equinox FCEV is capable of 160 miles, plus-or-minus, on a 4.2 kilogram tank of compressed hydrogen gas. I had a stated range of 110 miles when I got the vehicle, put just 60 miles on the odometer and the on-board info center said there was just 30 miles of range left when I returned the car.

I used the car to make a run to the grocery store -- it holds quite a bit, thank you, with almost as much cargo volume as the standard Equinox although cargo payload is down to just 800 pounds to make up for the 700 pounds the fuel cell and battery system adds to the overall weight – to take my wife to dinner and to drive around the hills and canyons near our house to experience the vehicle's road manners.

And, of course, to test its get-up-and-go.

(I didn't drive any more because I knew the pickup crew had to drive nearly 20 miles from my house to the hydrogen pump at the University of California, Irvine, campus to refuel for the 70-mile drive back to GM's Western Region offices and I didn't want to be the cause of a fuel depletion episode.)

In the 60 miles I did drive, the Equinox FCEV behaved just about the way a standard Equinox behaves. Steering was a little soft, the ride was firm but comfortable, as were the seats, and the brakes were a little grabbier than usual – a characteristic of regenerative braking used to capture energy for the batteries.

There was, overall, absolutely nothing remarkable about the vehicle – if you could ignore the absence of engine and exhaust noise, replaced by the soft whine of the fuel system's air compressor spooling up and the slightly louder but not-unpleasant whirr of the battery cooling fans.

In our Edmunds First Drive report on the Equinox FCEV, we opined that the car and its hydrogen-fed electric drive system seemed ready for prime time and that all that was holding it up was the lack of a hydrogen fueling system.

I found nothing in my two short days with the vehicle to make me want to challenge that.