Chevy Equinox Fuel Cell Review

Hydrogen has been called the fuel of the future for the automobile and it always will be as they say. Well companies like Honda with their FCX Clarity and General Motors with this Fuel Cell Equinox are trying to make the future today. This vehicle is part of a fleet of 100 Fuel Cell Equinoxes that the General Motors has built, is part of it's project Driveway and that's a program where people, normal people like you and me can drive these cars as part of the three month lease, that's free and the hydrogen is free, and the intension is for the vehicles to be rotated through as many people and drivers as possible in oder to learn as much about this technology as possible. This might look like a conventional Equinox from the outside, but inside it's anything but a few visual giveaways are these larger vents in this area and here along the center. They allow more air to pass into the engine compartment than a conventional gas version of this vehicle would have and that seems a little bit strange in that the temperatures are lower in the engine compartment of a vehicle like this than a gasoline one, but the reason is, is that those lower temperatures require a larger radiator to transfer the heat. Under here is the business end-up things. Right here is the fuel cell. It lies right across the path of where the electric motor resides which is deep below. The fuel cell is the place where the hydrogen, which is stored in back is brought together with oxygen from the air and the consequence is a water vapor that is emitted from the rare of the car, and the vital electricity which propels the car. The electric motor produces 100 HP continuously, 127 HP for short bursts. And what's interesting about this is how stylized the engine bay is. This is the sort of plastic shrouding and stylistic design you find on lot of production cars these days and a kind of suggests that this thing is moving towards producibility. It's no longer a science project. That might look like a conventional brake and of course it is a conventional brake but the hand shaft that connects this wheel to the electric motor can also deliver power or energy back from the stopping wheel to the motor which is acting like a generator, producing electricity which is delivered to the battery for later use. Few of the other features of interest are the battery which is a Nickel Metal Hydride pack like the previous users, it resides in this area right here. What it does is it collects that braking energy I was talking about. It also provides some bridge energy while you are accelerating or your changing speed. The fuel cell itself can't respond very quickly so it needs the battery's help from time to time while you are accelerating. Further up in this area here are three hydrogen tanks, 10000 PSI what they can be pumped up to, and in that situation, they contain 4.3 or so kilograms of hydrogen. That's equivalent energy wise to about the same number of the gallons, 4.3, 4.4 gallons of gasoline. So that's all you have got to work with. It's about that much gas. This is the fuel filler right here. That's where the hydrogen goes in. Lastly, there is this communications port and you use this when the car is being refilled with 100 PSI hydrogen. You connect this to a cable at the hydrogen station and the computer at the station can talk to the computer in the car and they can understand the status of the vehicle while it's being refueled. These might look like tailpipes, but they are not. These are the ports where the water vapor that's produced in the fuel cell is emitted. What comes out of here is water though and in the right atmospheric conditions, it can condense into water, you could out a cup under here and drink it, it's very pure. So what's the big picture here? Well a few years ago, hydrogen vehicles like this definitely had the upper-hand in terms of the buzz in terms of the amount of money that was being invested in their technology. More recently the buzz has moved to plug-in hybrids that you use Lithium Ion batteries that seems to the harder topic at the moment. What will happen in the future, nobody really knows. What we do know is that this is a very vehicle. It operates well. It's very professionally built. It's something that anybody can jump into and drive at a moment's notice and enjoy and use it very comfortably. Project Driveway by General Motors is a way for them to learn how the public will respond to these, going forward, and that's a very important dimension. A car like this is not just technology, not just hydrogen, or where we get it, but how will people interact and respond to it in the real world and this car will help us find out.