Click on the Equinox Fuel Cell for a high res gallery

In the fall of 2006, General Motors announced plans to launch the largest ever field test of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles with Project Driveway. The intent was to build over 100 fuel cell-powered Chevrolet Equinoxes and provide them to regular drivers to use for a period of time in real world conditions so that the company could gather data about the vehicles perform. Everything in the article below applies equally to the Equinox fuel cell and the HydroGen4 which is the re-badged version for Europe. Only the name is different.

Having significant numbers of regular customers drive your vehicles is very different from having engineers drive them. Most importantly, they will tend to see a much wider variation of both road and driver input conditions than you will ever see on a proving ground. When a vehicle is being developed usually at most only a few dozen people responsible for each of the systems, like power-train, brakes, chassis, body, etc., will ever spend any significant amount of time driving them. Those engineers tend to focus on what they know to be the likely problem areas and get those fixed.

Continue reading after the jump

A plastic mock-up of the GM Gen5 fuel cell stack

General Motors built the first fuel cell-powered vehicle back in the 1960s when they created ElectroVan, a concept that was only tested briefly before being shelved. Over the past decade however, the company has worked aggressively to develop fuel cell technology. Last spring when they showed off the fuel cell variant of the Chevy Volt at the Shanghai Motor Show, they also announced their fifth-generation fuel cell stack.

At the time, VP of R&D Larry Burns discussed the new stack but didn't give much detail. The focus of the new design was on dramatically reducing the cost while improving the power density. One of the improvements that was mentioned was catalyst thrifting. This involves improved methods of applying the catalyst materials to ensure thinner, more uniform surfaces. This reduces the total amount of catalyst material that's required while allowing it to be more effective.

Update: At General Motors request two photos were removed from the gallery.

Continue reading about the Gen5 stack after the jump.

GM might be relaxing a bit on their previously announced plan (see links below) to mass-produce hydrogen cars in 2010. Just Auto reported yesterday that GM will now decide in 2010 whether this mass production is a good idea. Granted, GM's never said they'd have hydrogen cars on dealer lots across the country (just in hydrogen-friendly places like California), but Just Auto's article (subs req'd) makes the General out to be a lot more relaxed about the introduction of the production Sequel (or whatever).

Lars Peter Thiesen, manager of GM Europe's fuel cell deployment strategy, speaking at a media briefing at GM's test track near Frankfort, Germany, told Just Auto that GM is waiting to hit two targets (a 5,500 hour fuel cell and getting the cost of fuel cell power to about $50 per kilowatt (Thiesen said that small petrol engines cost $30 per kilowatt and a big, sophisticated engine costs $70 per kilowatt. Just Auto never quotes Thiesen saying that 2010 is the official decision date, but that's what their headline says, so don't hold GM to this statement.

Related:

• GM plans to produce hydrogen fuel car by 2010
• GM to produce Sequel fuel cell vehicle by 2010

[Source: Just Auto (subs req'd)]