A couple of weeks ago, GM VP for Research and Development Larry Burns spoke to the National Hydrogen Association. The focus of his talk was to encourage energy companies to get moving with deploying hydrogen filling stations to support a fleet fuel cell vehicles. GM, Toyota and Honda were all at the NHA conference and the three - along with Daimler - have all indicated their confidence in the efficiency, effectiveness, and durability of fuel cell technology. Burns acknowledged it will take several generations of the technology with increased production volumes to get to a point where it is as affordable as today's powertrains. However, it's difficult for automakers to justify building cars if energy companies won't open retail filling stations. In order to make its Project Driveway program happen, GM had to purchase hydrogen fueling systems to support the 100 Chevy Equinox fuel cell vehicles. Burns called on the industry to roll out 40 stations within the three counties of Los Angeles and along corridors to Santa Barbara, Palm Springs and Las Vegas and San Diego. Such an implementation would put hydrogen with convenient reach of the entire population of the the Los Angeles area. Burns would like to see this happen before the next wave of fuel cell vehicles is rolled out in the next few years. You can listen to Burns speech here.

[Source: GMnext.com]

Toyota published a post on their Open Road Blog today officially supporting statements by GM Vice President Larry Burns. At the recent National Hydrogen Association conference in Sacramento, Burns called on the energy industry to invest more in developing a national hydrogen fueling infrastructure. Burns declared that vehicle fuel cell technology works and manufacturers are ready to move forward with commercialization. Unfortunately, they can't really do that without the ability for customers to fuel their vehicles. While many have focused on the cost of building out a network of hydrogen stations, only a small fraction of the current number of gas stations are needed to support widespread use of hydrogen vehicles. There are 170,000 gas stations in the U.S. right now, but only 12,000 stations would be needed to have a station within two miles of 70 percent of the population. Toyota called out the fact that the oil industry earned $123 billion in profits in 2007 alone. Even an estimate of $24 billion - which is at the high end of projections - would be well within the means of the energy industry to pay for a hydrogen infrastructure and it would still leave them $100 billion to play with before they even count up this year's profits. No doubt hydrogen is not the total solution, but it is one part of it.

[Source: Toyota Open Road Blog]

During a keynote speech at the National Hydrogen Association conference in Sacramento, CA, GM's VP for Research and Development declared automotive fuel cell technology ready. However he said it can't move forward without a supply of hydrogen to feed mass quantities of cars. Between General Motors, Daimler, Toyota, Honda and Ford, automakers have demonstrated that the technology works and is reliable. GM and Honda in particular are working aggressively to create fuel cell designs that can be mass produced at an affordable cost. The latest designs have improved efficiency, durability and greatly reduced requirements for catalyst materials.

At the conference, Burns is stepping up the call for the energy industry and government to start implementing a fuel distribution system. Previous analysis done by General Motors has concluded that supplying upwards of ninety-five percent of the population would only require 12,000 hydrogen stations nationwide. That compares to 170,000 gas stations currently in operation. That number of stations placed at roughly two mile intervals in all the populated areas and twenty-five miles apart on major highways would be sufficient to supply the nation with hydrogen for transportation. The estimated cost of that would $10-15 billion or about 1/3 of ExxonMobil's profits for one recent quarter. Without this investment, the U.S. will get left behind.

[Source: Hydrogen Forecast]

As promised, here are the audio files from Tuesday's TechKnow: Alternative Fuel Cars forum in Ann Arbor. You can read my write up of the event here, but if it's direct-from-the-horse's-mouth information you're looking for, this is the post for you. Each of the individual presentations is between 8 and 12 minutes long, and the two hour-long files are also included for your listening pleasure.

• Mark Goodstein, Automotive X Prize
• Chuck Gulash, VP of research and material engineering at the Toyota Technical Center
• Nancy Gioia, director of sustainable motor technologies and hybrid vehicles at Ford
• Larry Burns, VP of research and development at GM
• David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research

• Complete audio of all the presenters in one MP3 file (one hour)
• Complete Q&A session (one hour)

By now plenty of people have seen concept vehicles like the Chevy Volt and Ford HySeries Drive Edge. One of the biggest advantage of the series hybrid drivetrains in these machines is the flexibility they provide in choosing an auxiliary power unit. With the battery system providing the primary energy source to the electric motor the transient load demands of acceleration are taken off the range extender. This allows the range extender to operate in a constant mode doing nothing more than driving a generator to keep the battery charged.

When an engine operates in a constant mode like that it can be optimized for those conditions. However while the original Volt showed a fairly conventional three cylinder flex-fuel engine, there is also the possibility of using something radically different. We recently covered work being done on homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engines that can provide significantly reduced fuel consumption and emissions. Unfortunately getting HCCI works best only under certain light load conditions. However the series hybrid may well provide the perfect application for something like HCCI.

During a conversation with GM Vice President of R&D Larry Burns I brought the idea of HCCI and E-Flex and he agreed that the series layout could be a potential application for the new combustion process. Burns said that GM is investigating many different possibilities for the E-Flex power-train because the constant rpm duty cycle allows many ideas that might not have been feasible before suddenly become a real possibility. A whole new world gets opened up by this setup so thing only thing that's certain right now is change.

It appears as if everyones favorite series-hybrid may make it into production as early as 2010. This news comes courtesy of General Motors Larry Burns, GM's vice president for research and development and Jim Queen, group vice president of global engineering. It is no secret that the Volt was a huge hit for GM at the Detroit Auto Show this year, and as our own statistics show, it was a hit with consumers who research their vehicles on the internet as well. Another positive point for the Volt's production possibilities is that Bob Lutz is behind the project, and as "the man" in charge of global product development, as he wishes, GM does.

Last week, Burns said that the next-gen Delta platform would underpin the Volt. Because this same platform is expected under the next-generation of the Chevy Cobalt, the same plant in Lordstown, Ohio might get the nod to produce the Volt as well. Although the vehicle is expected to be produced in America, it is also hoped by GM that the Volt could be sold in other parts of the world, and the platform can accept other methods to charge the batteries, such as a diesel engine in Europe.

According to this article on Automotive News (subscription required), GM has decided to go ahead with the development of both the original Volt concept with its internal combustion engine powering a generator which is capable of charging the on-board lithium ion batteries as well as the more recent fuel cell platform which uses an on-board hydrogen fuel-cell to provide a range-extending charge to said batteries. Speaking of which, the batteries are currently the largest stumbling block to seeing the Volt in your local Chevy dealer's lot. Assuming that suppliers can get the high-tech batteries and their associated systems working in time, it looks like the Volt is "a go"; which is great news indeed. Could the General be seen as the new green automaker, taking the lead from stalwarts such as Honda and Toyota? They could, and the Volt would be an excellent opening salvo in making that possibility a reality.

Update: According to a GM spokesman no plant has yet been selected as the production site for the E-Flex vehicles although planning and development are proceeding full speed ahead. Since Lordstown is the current plant for the Chevy Cobalt, it's obviously in the running but is not a shoe-in.

Click here for our initial coverage of the Volt.



[Source: Automotive News (subscription required)

click on the image for a high-res gallery of the fuel cell E-Flex platform

In the last few months General Motors has been on real energy diversity kick. They seem to have bought wholeheartedly into the idea that monocultures are bad, particularly when it comes to energy supplies. While ninety-eight percent of the energy that we use for motorized transportation today is derived from petroleum, it isn't going to remain that way forever. We've already started seeing a shift toward biofuels and electric drive systems that can get their energy from any number of sources.

Back in January General Motors showed the world their new E-Flex electric drive platform in the form of a chassis mock-up of a plug-in series hybrid system and the Chevrolet Volt concept. At the time and repeatedly since GM has emphasized that the power-train system is designed to be modular and flexible to allow for many different energy sources to be used. They showed renderings of E-Flex powered entirely by batteries and also by fuel cells. At the 2007 Shanghai Motor Show, GM is unveiling the second major E-Flex variant with a hydrogen fuel cell powertrain. The new E-Flex version is powered by GM's new fifth-generation stack, which may well be the best performing fuel cell yet.

Continue reading all about the fuel cell E-Flex after the jump.



[Source: General Motors]

Sebastian and Sam discuss what's coming out at this weeks Alternative Fuel Vehicle conference in Anaheim, and New York Auto Show as well as some of this weeks news. Prior to the recent GM battery technology briefing, Sam, Ed Ring, David Houle, and Jeff McIntire-Strasburg got to sit down with Larry Burns, GM Vice President for breakfast and a discussion of where he thinks GM is going with alternative fuel technology. The Q and A session led to some interesting discussion.

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