General Motors, fuel cells

Efforts continue to improve fuel cell technology and utilization which should reduce costs. The General Motors fuel cell program aims at having a commercial fuel cell vehicle by 2010. Volume production of fuel cell cars should reduce costs, but one Department of Energy projection with a production of 500,000 vehicles a year still has the cost too high. 

General Motors fuel cell Electro van. (courtesy of GM Archives)... 

Figure 7.12 (a) General Motors fuel cell variant of the Chevrolet Volt (b) Ford... 

General Motors Fuel Cell Stack Progress... 

By 1999, General Motors, Daimler-Clirysler, Toyota, and Nissan all had demonstration fuel cell vehicles operating on niethanol, with plans to start introducing vehicles into the market by 2005. Auto makers have shown a preference for methanol over gasoline primarily because of the likelihood of the sulfur content in gasoline poisoning some of the catalysts used in the fuel cell. 

General Motors, Oakland Township, MI Fuel Cells Fuel Cell Vehicles... 

Dow Chemical and General Motors are installing up to 400 fuel cells at Dow plants. Hydrogen is a natural byproduct at Dow and will provide 35 megawatts at its facilities. 

BMW has made progress with liquid hydrogen and has manufactured several models in its 7 series that can run on this fuel. It is stored in a tank behind the rear seats. Ford has teamed up with DaimlerChrysler, and General Motors with Toyota, to develop cars with hydrogen fuel cells. 

The General Motors Sequel fuel cell concept car holds enough fuel for 300 miles. It fits the seven kilograms of hydrogen into an 11-inch thick skateboard chassis. The Sequel has been called a crossover SUV. Since mechanical components are replaced by electrical parts, interior layouts can be more open with more space in smaller vehicles. 

General Motors is also applying cell technology to stationary power. Dow and GM are working on a significant fuel cell application at the... 

The metal plate has been newly developed and has attracted much attention in recent years. For example. General Motors indicated recently [25] that metal plates had been selected and would be utilized in its newly designed fuel cells to be installed in commercialized vehicles soon. 

Freedom CAR partnership between USDOE, General Motors, Ford and DaimlerChrysler to develop PEM fuel cells for use in automotive applications. 

General Motors, an American manufacturer, produces a vehicle called the Electrovan that is propelled by a hydrogen fuel cell, generally considered the first fuel cell vehicle. Far too expensive for consumer use, the vehicle was not marketed and the project was discontinued. 

Fuel cell technology provides the basis for the use of hydrogen as an alternative transportation fuel. Major automotive manufacturers such as DaimlerChrysler, Ford, General Motors, Honda, and BMW are involved in producing fuel cell powered vehicles for commercial sale. 

A general schematic for a smart window is shown in Figure 13.10. This device is, quite literally, two chemically modified electrodes sandwiched together. In this case, the films coating the electrode surfaces are electrochromic materials. A polymer electrolyte, analogous to that used in the fuel cell discussed earlier, is sandwiched between these two electrochromic material-coated electrodes. In a recent example of this concept by Habib and Maheswari of General Motors Research Laboratories [94], the cathodic electrochromic material was a tungsten oxide and the cathodic electrochromic material was the material Prussian blue, discussed in Section II of this chapter. It seems likely that electrochromic cells will soon find their way into the commercial marketplace. 

Raiser S. General Motors Corporation. Hybrid fuel cell system with battery capacitor energy storage system. WO patent/2006/065364. 

Fig. 13.25. Preferential oxidation and re-former-shifter test bench experiment. (Reprinted with permission from Research and Development of Proton-Exchange-Membrane (PEM) Fuel Cell System for Transportation Applications, Phase I, Final Report, prepared for the U.S. Dept, of Energy by General Motors, 1996, Fig. 2.2.3.1.)...

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