General Motor's Project Driveway campaign began late last year and is expected to continue on for a total of three years. A few of the participants have spoken about their experiences with the hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicles, and now one of them will be blogging on Popular Mechanics regarding his ongoing experience. Fortunately for Daniel Krach, he lives close enough to a hydrogen fueling station that the hydrogen-powered vehicle's 160 mile range should not pose a problem. He says that he was selected after a rigorous few months of questioning due to his penchant for being an early-adopter when it comes to new technology. Indeed, his family considers him a nerd. We can truly feel his pain. Considering that it has gotten him the keys to a brand new high-tech vehicle, which he didn't even need to pay for, we'd imagine that nobody's laughing at him now.

So far, his journey is just beginning, and of course, we wish Daniel the best with his new ride and we look forward to reading more about the experiences he gains as he drives the new-fangled vehicle all around.

[Source: Popular Mechanics]

Virgin Atlantic announced that it has joined forces with Chevy's "Project Driveway" program. Richard Branson's airline is going to use three Chevrolet Equinox hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for its "complimentary ground transfer service for upper class passengers" for planes landing at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). The program will last for 30 months. Virgin and Chevrolet are studying the possibility to expand this service to New York.

Branson stated that this program was one of Virgin's initiatives to reduce the airline's carbon footprint. GM's Larry Burns said that it was a perfect endorsement of GM's fuel cell technology and "an important new avenue for demonstrating the new DNA of the automobile."

The Chevy Equinox looks like a conventional production car but the ICE has been with a fuel cell system plus a nickel-metal hydride battery pack under the floor of the vehicle. It's got three compressed hydrogen storage tanks made of carbon fiber and pressurized to 10,000 pounds per square inch (psi). The tanks contain roughly nine pounds (4.2 kg) of hydrogen good for a range of approximately 150 miles (220 km). Full press release after the jump.

As General Motors prepares to start handing over the keys to fuel cell powered Equinoxes to the "customer" participants in Project Driveway, they announced the first Washington, DC-area drivers. At the Washington DC Auto Show, GM North America Sales VP Mark LaNeve introduced Tom Albert of Alexandria, VA, and Nick Williams of Washington, DC. Williams and Albert will each get a fuel cell Equinox free of charge for a three-month period. Over 100 Equinoxes are being prepared for a two-to-three-year field test. Drivers won't have to pay for fuel or insurance but will have to provide regular feedback to GM on the vehicles. The Equinox uses the current fourth-generation fuel cell stack and has a range of about 160 miles.

[Source: General Motors]

GM Vice-Chairman Bob Lutz may speak frequently about hard it will be for car-makers to meet proposed new 35 mpg fuel economy standards but that doesn't mean his employer is sitting on its collective hands. At the Los Angeles Auto Show, the company announced that its Chevrolet brand would take the corporate lead in implementing fuel economy improvements in every segment. Chevy already has the highest fuel economy in the full-sized truck market and wants to expand that to all segments. They plan to implement and expand use of a variety of technologies to enhance all their vehicles.

Chevrolet is already using their cylinder deactivation system called Active Fuel Management in the 5.3L and 6.0L V-8s in their trucks and Impala SS sedan and the 3.9L V-6 in the Impala. E85-capable Flex-Fuel engines are also available in a variety of vehicles and availability of those is being expanded. The Impala LTZ with the 3.9L V-6 has both E85 and AFM capability. The two-mode hybrid Tahoes are now in production and that hybrid system will be added to the Silverado pickup next year. In couple of years, the Chevy Volt will be launched as a range extended electric car and fuel cells are now being field tested in the Chevrolet Equinox as part of Project Driveway. It looks like Chevrolet will be the lead division for new technologies that are developed as well.

[Source: General Motors]

Click for a high-res gallery of the fuel cell Equinox

At the Los Angeles Auto Show, General Motors and Disney have announced that the entertainment company will be participating in the Project Driveway program. Ten of the Chevy Equinox fuel cell crossovers will be used on site at Disney facilities in Southern California. Disney will use the vehicles to shuttle staff, talent and other people around the facilities. GM is building over 100 of the fuel cell Equinoxes for the program. Most of them will be loaned to regular drivers for three month terms so that the company can gather real world data on the performance of fuel cell vehicles. The GM press release is after the jump.

[Source: General Motors]

GM held the latest in their series of Project Driveway launch events in New York this week where they held informational sessions for media and some of the prospective drivers. Lyle Dennis attended one of the sessions and got to spend some time behind the wheel of one of the fuel cell-powered Chevy Equinoxes. As most people do, he came away very impressed by how quiet the Sequel was, and most electrically-driven vehicles are. Equally impressive was the acceleration thanks to the instant torque of the motor. Check out Lyle's video after the jump.

[Source: GM-Volt]

As part of the launch of Project Driveway, GM is conducting a series of Electric Drive University programs in the areas where the fuel cell Equinox will be available. Autoblog's Alex Nunez will will be attending one such even this week in Westchester NY and providing his first hand account. The first of these events took place last week in southern California and Matt Kelly from NextGear had the chance to talk to Davi Kutz. Davi is one of the initial batch of volunteers chosen to spend three months driving one of these hydrogen-fueled crossovers. If you live in California, New York or the Washington, D.C. and you're interested in participating in this three-year program, you can sign up at the GM's special web-site.

[Source: NextGear]

This week, General Motors began handing over the first of over 100 Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell crossovers to customers in the New York City, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. areas. The program will run for at least the next two years and the vehicles will be provided to regular people and celebrities in those areas (and others, as hydrogen availability is increased). Families will have vehicles for three months and won't be charged for the use of the vehicles or the fuel but will have to provide feedback on their experiences. This will be the largest field test of fuel cell vehicles ever done and lessons learned from it will be applied to the development of the fuel cell version of the Chevy Volt. You can check out a detailed technical analysis of the Equinox Fuel Cell here.

[Source: General Motors]