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

In Shanghai this month, as you probably know, GM unveiled the fuel cell version of the E-Flex platform. It's also not recent news that GM wants to have 100-plus hydrogen fuel cell Equinox vehicles out for real world testing soon. And, of course, GM said in February they want to have a production version of the hydrogen-powered Sequel for sale by 2010 (in limited quantaties).

Where does all this lead us? Some would say it's likely to lead us down the road to the questionable benefits of a hydrogen economy. But from a GM-centric perspective, it's likely to lead us to a mass-produced GM hydrogen car in 2012. At least, that's what Motor Trend heard when they spoke with GM's Larry Burns (AutoblogGreen spoke with Burns in March, and you can hear the interview in our second podcast).

Burns told Motor Trend's Todd Lassa about the hydrogen future for GM, and pointed out this bit of information on how GM is looking at the hydrogen future for the rest of us:

"We did that same calculation [how many hydrogen stations would they need] for the 100 largest cities in the U.S. ... and we connected all the cities with stations on the freeway with stations every 25 miles, and that added up to 12,000 stations. Out of 170,000 total in the United States. Even if every station cost $1 million for hydrogen, that's $12 billion. The Alaskan Pipeline today would cost $25 billion. So for half the cost of the Alaskan Pipeline, you could have stations for 70 percent of the population." (See the DOE's hydrogen predictions here)

With fuel station problems partially solved for $12 billion, Burns said GM sees production engineering for high-tech, low- or no-emissions vehicles being the same as for any conventional car or truck in three to four years.

You can read the whole thing here.



[Source: Todd Lassa / Motor Trend]

Click on the photo Bob Lutz with the Sequel for a gallery of high-res images of the fuel cell prototype

At a conference in Palm Springs, CA, earlier this week, Mohsen Shabana, the chief engineer of the GM fuel cell project announced that they would begin building a production version of the Sequel by 2010. The Sequel is GM's latest generation fuel cell concept using lithium-ion batteries to capture kinetic energy from regenerative braking and third-generation General Motors developed fuel cell. A single electric motor of the same type used in the Chevy Volt concept drives the front wheels, while the rears are driven by a par of hub motors.

Most likely GM will follow a model similar to the one Honda will be using starting in 2008 for the production version of the FCX. The FCX will be built initially in low volumes with availability limited to locations that have some hydrogen filling stations such as California and Florida. As hydrogen becomes more widely available, vehicle availability would be expanded. Currently, only two running Sequels exist, and GM's first large scale field trials will begin this year with a fleet of 100 fuel cell powered Chevy Equinoxes.



[Source: The Raw Story via eGMCarTech]