GM Crafts Hydrogen-Powered Sequel

2005 GM Sequel concept, Detroit Auto Show

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2005 Detroit Auto Show Index by TCC Team (1/8/2005)

Fast, clean, quiet and comfortable, Sequel is the appropriately-named successor to last year’s Hy-Wire fuel cell vehicle. In General Motors’ vision of the future, hydrogen-powered vehicles like Sequel will, in the words of one executive, “take the environment out of the automotive equation.”

But while Sequel may look a lot like a modern SUV, it’s not nearly ready for prime time. In fact, many skeptics wonder whether hydrogen is more hype than hope.

Don’t tell that to GM Chairman Rick Wagoner. “This is the sequel to 100 years of the automobile,” he declared during a preview at this year’s annual Detroit auto show.

The concept vehicle is the latest in a series of fuel cell-powered prototypes GM has rolled out in recent years, the automaker promising to put the technology into production by 2010. Just a year ago, it introduced a Jetsons-like concept vehicle dubbed Hy-Wire. Short for hydrogen and drive-by-wire, the vehicle was as radically different from today’s cars as a 747 is from the Wright Brothers’ original flyer.

The heart of a fuel cell vehicle, or FCV is the “stack,” where hydrogen and oxygen are combined to produce both water vapor and electric current, energy that can be used to run electric motors. Rather than mechanical links, Hy-Wire replaced pedals and steering wheel with video game-style electronic controls. Everything, including the show car’s suspension, compressed hydrogen storage tanks, climate control system and brakes, were stuffed inside a skateboard like chassis onto which Hy-Wire’s sci-fi body was bolted.

Sequel’s passenger compartment is a little less radical, looking a lot like next model year’s SUV. The GameBoy controllers look more like conventional automotive controls. This time, GM engineers have focused on the electro-mechanical guts of the vehicle. And for good reason.

Making a “real,” marketable fuel cell vehicle will require it deliver “the range, performance, safety and comfort of today’s (gasoline) vehicles,” concluded Dr. Larry Burns, GM’s director of advanced technologies.

Sequel repeats the basic functional premise of Hy-Wire, placing all its functional elements underneath the passenger compartment in an 11-inch-thick “skateboard.”

With three fuel tanks compressed to a dense, 10,000 psi, can squeeze in about eight kilograms of hydrogen — each kg functionally equal to about a gallon of gasoline. That’s enough, the automaker believes, to get about 300 miles on a tank, or about twice what FCVs have yielded until now.

The SUV-like body is extremely roomy inside, not surprising when you consider that all the mechanical bits are now housed underneath, it’s easy to use space that would be used for the engine in a conventional vehicle.

Using the fourth-generation of GM’s fuel cell technology, the Sequel’s stack pumps out about 125 kilowatts of power — quite a bit more than most other FCV prototypes. It can launch the vehicle from 0-60 in about nine seconds, along the lines of many V-6 sedans, and again much better than existing FCVs.

Visually, Sequel has the look of an entry-luxury crossover vehicle. That makes sense when you consider a production version would almost certainly carry a significant premium when compared to a conventional car or light truck.

Affordability is one of the biggest challenges the technology faces, acknowledged Byron McCormick, director of GM’s fuel cell center in upstate New York . “We’re beginning to see through it,” he said, hinting that the Gen-4 stack uses far less precious metals, such as platinum, and would be significantly easier to mass produce than prior stacks.

The new unit also is more reliable. Up until now, the typical stack’s life was measured in the tens or hundreds of hours between failures. Today’s gasoline engines can run as long as 10,000 hours without a major overhaul.

GM is by no means the only automaker working on fuel cell technology. Ford Motor Co., DaimlerChrysler, Honda, Toyota, and Nissan are among the many competitors hoping to harness the same element that powers the sun. But while hydrogen may be the most abundant element in the universe, that doesn’t mean it will be easy to tap, cautioned Dr. David Cole, director of the Center for Automotive Research, in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

For one thing, there’s the issue of storage. The three tanks in Sequel’s chassis would fill the cargo compartment of a conventional SUV.

But just producing hydrogen and then distributing it is proving to be a major challenge. The gas is everywhere, but not readily available. And many of the most accessible forms require more energy — and produce more CO2 — than you’d save by using hydrogen to power a car.

It’s no wonder that GM CEO Wagoner likens the effort to build a marketable fuel cell vehicle to “the auto industry’s moon shot.”

While GM continues to stick to its 2010 target date, other manufacturers are backing away from an aggressive timelime. Some believe they’ll have marketable technology by the middle of the next decade, others not until at least 2020. General industry consensus doesn’t see the FCV taking over as the dominant form of automotive transportation before mid-century — if ever.

But whether GM is over-ambitious or not, it is demonstrating the vast potential, and exploring the unknowns raised by a technology that could transform a well-established industry.