Hybrids are "basis" for fuel cells
"The hybrid is the basis," said Robert Stempel, chairman and CEO of Energy Conversion Devices Inc., which develops batteries used in hybrid cars. "It gets the electric drive on the vehicle. Once you have the electric drive there, then you really don't care if you have the gasoline engine or diesel or fuel cells. The key is that electric drive." (more)
So, why haven't American automakers been more bullish on hybrid vehicles? If hybrids help create the necessary powertrain for fuel cell vehicles, doesn't hybrid production ultimately help reduce the costs for fuel cell production? Moreover, other fuel cell makers have argued that plug-in fuel cell hybrid vehicles could also speed fuel cell development by enabling smaller - thus cheaper - fuel cells to help power the vehicle.
Are American automakers really going to compete in the world auto market by focusing on alternative fuels?
I say technology is the only answer, and it seems American automakers are already missing the boat. C'mon GM and Ford, it's OUR future! Give us foreign-oil dependency, fuel cell investing American-made hybrid vehicles and ask those jackasses in Washington to help foot the bill.
So, why haven't American automakers been more bullish on hybrid vehicles? If hybrids help create the necessary powertrain for fuel cell vehicles, doesn't hybrid production ultimately help reduce the costs for fuel cell production? Moreover, other fuel cell makers have argued that plug-in fuel cell hybrid vehicles could also speed fuel cell development by enabling smaller - thus cheaper - fuel cells to help power the vehicle.
Are American automakers really going to compete in the world auto market by focusing on alternative fuels?
I say technology is the only answer, and it seems American automakers are already missing the boat. C'mon GM and Ford, it's OUR future! Give us foreign-oil dependency, fuel cell investing American-made hybrid vehicles and ask those jackasses in Washington to help foot the bill.
Labels: clean diesel, Ford, Foreign Oil Dependency, fuel cells, GM, Hybrid Vehicles, plug-in hybrids
posted by Dahcredyns at
10:22 AM
3 Comments:
I think that's hitting the nail on the head - a good goal is to get the energy intermediary down to something very fungible like electricity. Once you have electricity as the drive-train power source, the fuel source becomes anything that generates electricity - generator (petrol, diesel, natural gas), batteries (plug-in / EV supplied by the power grid), hybrogen (fuel cell).
Mike
"fungible" - Now there is a word I HAVE to incorporate into my daily vocabularly.
I think the other beautiful thing about something like a plug-in fuel cell hybrid vehicle, is that the vehicle doesn't have to be fully powered by electricity in the short term.
A smaller fuel/cell battery combination might be able to function almost solely off regenerative breaking in stop-and-slow traffic. If you drain the batteries a bit too much, top off with a little electricity at night or throw in a gallon of E85.
In the short term, we wouldn't necessarily need a huge fuel cell and/or network of hydrogen filling stations.
Maybe that's why such a development isn't occurring - it's not as easy to monopolize as the 'hydrogen highway' powered fuel cell vehicle.
Yeah - fungible is just fun to say.
The most successful path will be a slow migration from big-fuel/small-electric hybrids toward small-fuel/big-electric hybrids. It's not a revolution, but an evolution. At some point in there, the batteries will be big enough to justify the plug-in benefits. As the non-electric fuel source gets smaller, different sources can step up to provide that long-range fuel supply. For fuel cells, it's a much harder problem to drive the whole car off the fuel cell than it is to provide some top-off energy.
Mike
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