Speeding Up Interest in Fuel Cell Technology
Six vehicles propelled by hydrogen fuel cells will drive this week from Sacramento to Los Angeles to demonstrate that a new transportation system is coming to free us from dependence on Saudi Arabia.
Yes, we've been on that road before. In the last decade, with a push from California's call for zero-emissions vehicles, the electric car was supposed to revolutionize our lives. It didn't happen. Gasoline-electric hybrids are starting to sell, though you shouldn't expect to see one next to you at every stoplight anytime soon. If ever.
But the fuel cell is different: This time, automakers, looking to sell cars to the billions of people who still get around by bicycle or bus, are leading the charge. And the oil companies are right behind them.
Toyota Motor Corp., General Motors Corp., Honda Motor Co. and the rest are investing billions in fuel cells -- on-board power plants that produce power from hydrogen electrons and emit only tidy H2O from the exhaust pipe, making them appealing to developing countries worried about the environmental effect of their citizens' finally entering the automobile age.
Oil companies such as ChevronTexaco Corp. and Shell are spending research and development dollars too, seeing themselves as the providers of hydrogen fuel and operators of hydrogen service stations.
The auto industry is making a big show of testing fuel cells in rallies, such as this week's run that will see cars from DaimlerChrysler, Ford Motor Co., Honda, Hyundai Motor Co., Nissan Motor Co. and Toyota barrel through the Central Valley, with stops at Fresno and Bakersfield, to end up at the Los Angeles Zoo and then the Petersen Automotive Museum on Friday evening.
Carmakers want to accelerate interest. "The fuel cell is the auto industry's Holy Grail," says Dan Sperling, director of the Institute for Transportation Studies at UC Davis.
Growing Support
Political backing is powerful. President Bush, once an oilman in Texas, pledged $1.2 billion for research. There also is demand: Toyota is leasing 20 of its experimental hydrogen fuel cell cars to Japanese government agencies and U.S. universities, at a tab of $123,000 per car per year.
"We didn't think that many cars would be on the road until 2006," says Alan Niedzwiecki, president of Irvine-based Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide.
