GM Fuel Cell by 2011?
GM is making a lot of noise lately about Fuel Cells, culminating in their announcement on Friday that they will have Fuel Cell powered cars in showrooms by 2011. If this ends up being true, and the obstacles surrounding cost and re-fueling infrastructure can be overcome, GM has the potential to leap frog their competition in a way that changes the auto-industry forever. If it fails (and it is starting to sound like they are betting the farm on this) it could mark the end of GM as the lead player in the auto industry.
While we have all heard GM making this kind of futuristic pronouncement before, the date has never seemed so close, and when you combine it with recent comments from the company about the importance of nuclear power as an emissions free energy source it starts to look like they might actually be serious about pulling this off.
posted by Andrew @ 9:46 AM
1 Comments:
I think we should follow the European model for alternative vechicle technology.
In Europe the combination of (i) legislation on emissions, (ii) incentives with respect to congestion charges
in cities and road taxes, (iii) provision of infrastructure benefits, and (iv) improvement in battery
technology in the electric vehicles themselves is leading to development of a growing segment for electric
vehicles within the City Car/SCV market.
For example, The European Union and Member States have taken steps towards imposing more stringent
regulations for automobile and truck tailpipe emissions for manufacturers and target/regulations for
governments. The EU has a burden sharing agreement in which Member States work together to help lower
emissions in line with the Kyoto Protocol. The European target is a reduction of 8% target by 2012
throughout Europe. The UK has taken on a more ambitious reduction target of 12.5%. Furthermore, The
UK Government has set a target that, by 2012, 10% of new cars sold in UK would have CO2 emissions of
100g/km or less.
In fact, the UK is the locus for the most dramatic growth of the City Car market and the EV segment. The
UK is the 2nd largest car market in Europe representing 18.2% of total European sales. There are
approximately 30 million cars in the UK and around 2.5 million new cars were purchased in the past year.
The UK is the most car-dominated economy in Europe, with the highest congestion and the second most intensely used road network after Spain. The government is embarking on an unprecedented 30-year transport plan to remedy this which includes nationwide congestion charging in cities.
In the UK, the main uses of cars are for shopping, commuting and business (20% each). 38% of car travel is single occupancy, 34% double occupancy, average occupancy overall is 1.2 persons. Conventional cars are over-specified for urban usage, with bigger bodies and powerful engines capable of performing beyond
the requirements of the urban need for short and/or frequent journeys. The average journey length anywhere in the UK is only 8 miles for commuting and leisure and half as much for shopping and school runs. In cities it is even less.
The result is a higher cost to the motorist (in terms of ownership) and a higher cost to environmental health.In London, 135,000 commuters drive in to central London every day. In addition an average of 150,000 people travel on the tube every hour and 7 million journeys per day are made on London buses.
In response to increasing density of traffic and increasing journey times, London was the first city to
introduce congestion charging in February 2003. The experiment has been deemed a success with 30%
fewer vehicles driving in central London during rush hour and an improvement in journey times of 15%.
As a result of the congestion charge it is estimated that up to 60% of the 70,000 drivers who were
previously entering the zone by car are now using public transport, which represents a big opportunity.
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