The Zero-Emission Hydrogen-Fueled Chevy

With this SUV, Chevrolet is most def­i­nitely out to show that alter­na­tive fuel vehi­cles can be prac­ti­cal and fun. Seeing it up close, it has the first-glance appear­ance of a typ­i­cal mid-size SUV, with all the room and func­tion­al­ity that entails. It seats four and sports 32 cubic feet of cargo space and has the fea­tures you’d expect, such as air-conditioning, a nav­i­ga­tion sys­tem and a sound system.

But that is where the sim­i­lar­i­ties pretty much end, for the fuel pow­er­ing this SUV is that of the future. “It is an elec­tric vehi­cle,” Shad Balch, Western Region Environment & Energy Policy and Communications Director for General Motors explained to Organic Connections. “But instead of hav­ing a big bat­tery that you recharge, the vehi­cle actu­ally cre­ates elec­tric­ity on-board. It does that using com­pressed hydro­gen gas.”

The hydro­gen is con­verted into elec­tric­ity using a fuel-cell sys­tem under the hood in the front of the vehi­cle. The sys­tem con­sists of a stack of fuel cells that serve as a mem­brane, through which a com­bi­na­tion of hydro­gen and out­side air is forced. By this process, elec­trons are sep­a­rated out and fed down to the elec­tric motor, leav­ing behind water mol­e­cules. The water mol­e­cules are then ejected—the only emis­sion from the Equinox.

Pump Building

It is sim­ply the lack of hydro­gen refu­el­ing sta­tions and sus­tain­able pro­duc­tion of hydrogen—the prac­ti­cal infra­struc­ture needed to sup­port using such vehi­cles on the road—that is keep­ing the Equinox Fuel Cell SUV from broad release. “The Equinox Fuel Cell SUV is part of our demon­stra­tion that the vehi­cles are here, they work well, and they’re not just some sci­ence project,” said Balch. “We’re say­ing to energy com­pa­nies and gov­ern­ment, let’s all join in and start build­ing pumps.”

In cer­tain areas, espe­cially in California, you might actu­ally see one of these vehi­cles on the road, thanks to General Motors’ Project Driveway, which has placed 100 of them in the hands of every­day dri­vers for feed­back, close to nearby fuel­ing stations.

One such dri­ver is Los Angeles–based wildlife pho­tog­ra­pher Wayne Williams, who has been extremely impressed with the Equinox. “I find the vehi­cle to be very fast,” Williams told Organic Connections. “The ride is vir­tu­ally indis­tin­guish­able from a good crossover SUV. Acceleration and speed are not an issue what­so­ever. If I’m in traf­fic or mov­ing around, the car is very respon­sive. Because it’s elec­tric, it’s very quiet; the only sound you really hear is the slight tick-tick as the hydro­gen is converted.”

Indeed, as this writer took a ride in the car, the sound of tires against pave­ment and the slight sound of the air con­di­tioner were the only audi­ble noises. And the accel­er­a­tion was highly impressive—you can def­i­nitely feel it. The Equinox has a top speed of 100 mph, and since it is an elec­tric car, it is single-speed, so no shift­ing is required except at the begin­ning and the end of your drive, or to put it in reverse.

Click on any image above to see a larger version.

With its three carbon-fiber tanks full, the Equinox has a range of approx­i­mately 150 miles. The tanks hold a com­bined 4.2 kilo­grams of hydro­gen, so the mileage aver­ages out to about 36 miles per kilo­gram of hydro­gen. In prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence, how­ever, Williams has found these fig­ures to be exceeded. “Depending on whether I’m run­ning the air con­di­tion­ing and how effi­ciently I’m dri­ving, I’m get­ting between 40 and 57 miles per kilo­gram,” he reported. “Based on that, I could drive between 220 and 230 miles with­out refu­el­ing.” Nevertheless, the Equinox has a fea­ture that prompts the dri­ver to refuel at 150 miles, just to be on the safe side.

The three hydro­gen tanks can be refilled in a mat­ter of minutes—as opposed to the hours that it takes to recharge an elec­tric vehicle—from a hydro­gen refu­el­ing station.

Features of the Future

Other futur­is­tic fea­tures include what is called a regen­er­a­tive brak­ing sys­tem, which is not just used to stop the car: it also sends power to the bat­tery. When the brake pedal is applied, the elec­tric motor reverses and becomes a gen­er­a­tor, with power being fed to the bat­tery as the vehi­cle is slowed.

If you look in the rear of the Equinox for a tailpipe, you won’t see one. Instead, there are four vents through which water vapor is released. The vents are “blown out” when the car is started—you must wait about 30 sec­onds before mov­ing into motion for this to occur—and then again when it is turned off.

Williams has cer­tainly become a cham­pion of such vehi­cles. “From my view­point, our biggest prob­lem that we have right now is find­ing a way to pro­duce suf­fi­cient amounts of hydro­gen and dis­trib­ut­ing it in such a fash­ion that it’s effi­cient and it’s viable,” he said. “I think it’s just a mat­ter of time. If we had the polit­i­cal will in this coun­try to invest in that infra­struc­ture, it would be com­pletely ben­e­fi­cial. Hydrogen is the most plen­ti­ful ele­ment in the nat­ural world.”

“Given the demand and the infra­struc­ture, we could have this car in pro­duc­tion and on the road by 2015,” said Balch. “We have a sys­tem we’re test­ing right now that we could have ready for a com­mer­cial appli­ca­tion within five years. The sys­tem is a fuel-cell stack that is half the size of the one on our cur­rent test model, about a third of the weight, and it has about a quar­ter of the amount of plat­inum in it, which is the ele­ment that dri­ves up the cost. It’s down to a scale that we can man­u­fac­ture, if the vol­ume is high enough.”

For more infor­ma­tion on the Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell SUV, visit www.chevrolet.com/experience/fuel-solutions/fuel-cell/.