GM’s new hydrogen fuel cell: smaller, cheaper, more efficient

By Matt Brogan | August 19th, 2009

General Motors have developed new hydrogen fuel cell technology that allows not only smaller sized units to be made, but significant weight savings, increased efficiency and, best of all, cheaper production costs.

Pictured above left is the new, fifth-generation 93kW fuel cell stack next to the existing fourth-generation unit from the hydrogen-powered, also 93kW, GM Equinox (pictured below).

But the biggest improvement is lower production costs with GM engineers having reduced the amount of expensive platinum used by more than 50 per cent from about 80 grams to 30.

GM’s aim is to reduce the use of this precious metal even further by the time the sixth-generation unit is produced a goal of around 10 grams expected.

Economies of scale will no doubt help drive the cost per fuel cell stack down as well with production expected to achieve 10,000 units by 2015.

Life expectency of the fifth-generation unit is estimated to be around 190,000 kilometres.

The development could help pave the way for hydrogen technology to become more widely accepted.

CarAdvice will keep you posted on any developments.

Dude

I predict that hydrogeon technology a dead end and that plug in EVs are going to be the new standard
Bloke

Life expectency of the fifth-generation unit is estimated to be around 190,000 kilometres = about the same as a Toyota engine in my experience (x2)
Toxic_Horse

190,000 you gota be joking
that is just not acceptable !
Acfsambo

Toxic_Horse, is that 190,000km before something breaks? Does an average engine go 190,000km without changing anything? Also, what breaks at 190,000km and how hard is it to replace?
http://skyline The Salesman

Hydrogen is with out doubt going to be the most popular petrol replacement. I understand you can expect the same or similar klms per tank. But the overall winner for up front purchase cost and longevity will be gas hybrids.
Toxic_Horse

My limited understanding is that the Hydrogen Cell “unit” is the most expensive component in the engine.

On a modern engine you may have to change a timing belt, spark plugs or even a water pump but most modern engines last at least 300,000 kms with relatively no major problems.
Maneesh

you electric car fools, we only have a limited amount of Lithium on this planet, just like oil! But we have unlimited amounts of hydrogen and unlimited amounts of vegetable oil…
http://skyline The Salesman

Toxic – Horse.

And the first computers cost millions and were two stories high. Hydrogen will advance a bit more swiftly though i suspect.
Jimmy

Well said, Salesman. Rome wasn’t built in a day as the old saying goes. They have to start somewhere.

Hydrogen engines are more sustainable in the long run compared with electric. After all, the point of having these engines is to help the environment. While not being as polluting as a petrol engine, electricity still comes from coal fired power stations which isn’t solving the problem at hand.
Toxic_Horse

I agree Salesman but i just don’t think may people are going to fork out for a car with a engine that is only going to last for 190,000 k’s
imagine the resale value
PaulS

Replacement parts mean business for the manufacturers… My question is if we need to replace the whole engine after 190k kms or do we get a replacement element.

Truth be told this life expectancy is business could be one of the factors why car companies are opting for fuel cell cars.
MGH

Its great that they’ve made a cheaper, more fuel efficient fuel cell. But whats (watts) the tank-to-wheel efficiency? It is going to have to be MUCH higher than petrol to justify the synthesis of hydrogen and purchase of hydrogen-electric vehicles.

190,000km lifespan is great. After 190,000km, you can probably just replace the fuel cell, keeping the chassis/electric engine/hydrogen tank/etc.
Elitist

Im sure the European and Japanese will beat then at this too and Australia will put all their money into American technology and just like Ashy Larry, late to the party like always.
Devil666

Salesman, looks like you need a lesson in economics, because hydrogen will not happen in your lifetime.

First of all, hydrogen harvesting requires lots of energy. Green credentials slowly fading…

Secondly, no infrastructure is in place for hydrogen refueling. The huge outlay in capital required on a relatively new technology that is centuries behind the ICE in terms of development will NEVER see investment.

Thirdly, it will be a huge expense for the consumer. Outlaying so much capital for what will undoubtedly be a miniscule take up rate WILL NEVER HAPPEN.

Investors will always be looking at technologies that can be integrated in society ON THE CHEAP, and technologies that can be sold to consumers FOR PROFIT. The amount of subsidy required to get hydrogen into production and to a level that becomes affordable to the consumer will leave businesses bankrupt well before it takes off.

Hydrogen cars is a pipe dream. Keep it on the backburner for as long as you want, but until cars can sustainably harvest their own hydrogen while on the move and become self sufficient, IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN!
http://skyline The Salesman

In my experience, were there is need, there is profit. Economics 101. Lesson over.

Drilling for oil and harvesting coal require lots of energy too.

At one point some smart cookie thought there is going to be huge global demand for this, I might invest in it by building the required structure to harvest it. Cha ching! Cheddar coming…..

Anything that produces energy produces waste. If you can make energy without waste I suspect some sort of noble prize might come your way. Green credentials you say, I say lesser of two evils.

Fact is we are, at some point (with in my life time) going to run out of oil. I suspect then cost will be relative with production.

“Investors will always be looking at technologies that can be integrated in society ON THE CHEAP”

China just paid $50 Billion dollars to buy some of Australia’s LPG. On a rig that hasn’t even been built. The single biggest investment since oil and coal. You think they got it wrong?
P.S I know LPG is not Hydrogen, it is just an example on motoring evolution
http://Caradvice.com.au Baddass

The engine bay will look pretty empty with the new engine!
Reckless1

Salesman says
Fact is we are, at some point (with in my life time) going to run out of oil.

Mate, that’s what I was told in 1971 – we had less than 30 years left then.

Truth is, we’re not going to run out any time soon, and an alternative of one kind or another will replace petrol/diesel for private motoring long before that happens. The bigger problem is industry/shipping – no amount of hydrogen cells or LPG/LNG tanks or Eveready batteries will be used on heavy mining and transport machinery, and you can’t pave roads with water or gas, and you can’t make plastic out of water either.

Once a viable solution for commuter vehicles is adopted (note that it’s already found – LPG) the remaining oil can be directed to where it’s needed.

Trouble is the Western economies are heavily reliant on taxes from oil products, and also taxes from Oil Coy superprofits. That can’t easily be replaced by tax on LPG or hydrogen cells or lithium batteries, for to swing oil profits away from Oil giants over to LPG and battery Minnows will incur the wrath of Shell et al, and these giants can and will bring down any Govt that dares try it.

As for Green – well, Global Warming is the biggest con of the 21st century, but apart from that ALL the oil we ever find and dig up will be burned, and ALL the Natural Gas we ever find will be burned, and all the coal on earth will be burned, and ALL the oil sands will be mined and burned.

Then we’ll start burning renewable resources……
Shak

Even if the oil doesnt run out soon, the oil companies should be the ones looking into renewable fuels as its going to hit them the hardest when oil goes poof. They should start buying up gas fields and invest in hydrogen tech so that when it all disappears they will be ready to exploit the consumers through something other than oil. I read in wheels that Australia will be the first western nation to lose access to foreign oil as demand from China and India is so high they have top priority over the US. LPG and hydrogen will be the future and they will come in my lifetime i hope.
http://skyline The Salesman

Well as for those tricky experts in 1971. I reckon 59% no……. 62%of the time they make statistics up on the spot. Or best guess at the time with relevant information at hand.
Obviously car manufactures see it necessary to invest millions on the development of alternative fuels so their must be some value in it.
Good point on shipping. Nuclear maybe?
The world economies will adjust if they must. I don’t know exactly how as I am just a dodgy car salesman I can’t solve the world’s economy. Unless there is a healthy commission in it.
As for the global warming being a con, well it a matter of opinion. Global warming has certainly become a hot (pun intended) topic. Many of the world’s countries have committed themselves to reducing carbon emissions. I can’t see who would benefit from such a con?
Shak

Oh yeah and good on GM for making some advances with their decrepit old technology, maybe in two or more generations there will be 5 grams of paltinum and then we may all be able to afford hydrogen.
Shak

Salesman you say that all energy produces waste. Hydro, wind and hydrogen dont produce waste. If you count water as waste then maybe yes. but by your logic GM engineers along with Honda engineers should all have won Noble prizes by now.
Andrew M

T/S
the car companies arent developing alternative fuels because they think oil is going to run out,
They are doing it partly because they have to meet emissions targets, and partly because the public is being taxed to a point where they are looking for alternatives
Phil C.

Shak, a physics lesson. “Energy cannot be created nor destroyed”. What Salesman was stating is that for any given type of energy source, there is some waste to produce it.

I’ve built a solar farm and maintained a 300kW wind turbine as part of my work as an electrical fitter mechanic. To build the wind turbine for example requires among other things steel. Steel requires coking coal and iron ore, it also requires a furnance, either gas blast or electric arc. It took energy to supply the coal and the iron ore and the ‘energy’ source. These all created emissions.

What is hoped for, is that over the life of the renewable investment, be it wind or solar etc that it provide more energy than was required to build, install and maintain. The energy is converted from wind or solar radiation. In your other example, hydro energy. There is all the construction energy. Therefore there is a positive net benefit.

Even nuclear, the so called best solution (not my thinking) would according to John Howard’s report by former Telstra boss Ziggy stated that the emissions for building all the required Nuclear stations increase our emissions before finally reducing them some time in the 2020′s…
Phil C.

Good progress by GM. Lots smaller, hopefully more reliable and it’s smaller too.

Changing a fuel cell out wouldn’t be that hard. There would be the physical mountings, a fuel line and the electrical connections. Chances are the newer fuel cell would be physically smaller too.

It would likely mean, that you’d change it out once and then when it’s due a 2nd time, the body and everything else would need replacing. So, buy a new car then.
Devil666

“China just paid $50 Billion dollars to buy some of Australia’s LPG. On a rig that hasn’t even been built. The single biggest investment since oil and coal. You think they got it wrong?”

Uh, LPG infrastructure exists all over the world and it’s use as a fuel is widespread, cheap AND green. It doesn’t require being stored at ridiculous temperatures below zero. It just goes in a tank.

The point is, cheaper ways exist, and until they ALL dry up, hydrogen as a fuel is the LAST resort. Last. Got it? After LPG runs out, after oil, after everything.
Devil666

Phil C.

I think you are correct about energy offset with regard to nuclear power (sometime in 2020). But recent figures show it would take 100 years for a wind farm to actually return energy to the grid, taking into account building costs and the minimal energy produced.
PaulS

Alternative fuel vehicle are important for the fact that there is alternative fuel, at the end of the day we cannot say which one is really best as there would always be pros and cons. There is the argument of lack of infrastructure to support hydrogen and all that…. well, with this attitude, then we would never have built roads, bridges, underground tunnels and what not, wouldnt we? We would all be riding horses on dirt roads!
lazybones

“you electric car fools, we only have a limited amount of Lithium on this planet, just like oil! But we have unlimited amounts of hydrogen”

Lithum is very aboundant in the earths crust. Why do you think its market value is only $5USD per Kg. Not to mention most H2 Fuel cell cars still have Lithium-Ion batteries to harvest energry from braking.

All energy providers have a form of return on energy investment (EROI) as mentioned by Phil.C . Oil used to be about 20:1, so for every unit of energy used to produce oil you’d get 20 back. Oil is now sitting at about 5:1, and hydrogen is 0!

“Hydrogen engines are more sustainable in the long run compared with electric”

Hydrogen engines that are power by Fuel Cells are electric! They are the same thing. Your fuel cell converts H2 to electricity to drive an electric motor.

Shak, the oil companies have invested heavily in Hydrogen. Who do you think is driving the campaign. Shell is a big player in the US for H2 supply.

“Rome wasn’t built in a day as the old saying goes”, thats true Jimmy but they have been working on H2 for over 43 years! I didn’t take that long to put a man on the moon.
shak

Phil theres no use factoring in all those costs and things as they dont have a direct impact on fuel consumption and emmissions.
Frenchie

Lithium is abundant on earth. It abundant as nickel and lead, but to mine it is commercially hard. It’s in the soil but at very low amounts, 0.00002 kg lithium per kg of Earth’s crust.

$5 dollars per Kg, where did you get that figure from?
The cost of lithium is more like $300USD per lb ($600USD per Kg!
PaulS

Yes, H2 is converted to electricity… but at the moment H2 is a more reliable, lighter energy storage solution than batteries. Batteries storage capacity depletes over time, so bigger batteries mean bigger waste.

At the moment I’m not going to take any sides as yet. It’s a race between 2 technologies, H2 and EV – we as consumers will have the choice and decide which one we prefer.
Jimmy

To Reckless1 and the other climate change sceptics – how can you still dispute global warming? I just don’t understand how people can still dispute it as if it is some huge ‘conspiracy theory’.

Every piece of empirical evidence from every leading scientific organisation in the world says that we are causing it. If you don’t believe me, all you have to do it is type “global warming” into google, look at a few graphs, read a few reports, and it is as clear as anything.

But somehow, you guys know something everyone else doesn’t? And you know, even if you are right, it doesn’t make sense for us to keep consuming, wasting, and using nonrenewable resources.

Good on you for standing by your beliefs, but unfortunately, you are flogging a dead horse. A very dead horse, the skeletal remains of a horse, no, the DNA of the dust of where the horse died 10,000 years ago.
lazybones

“$5 dollars per Kg, where did you get that figure from?
The cost of lithium is more like $300USD per lb ($600USD per Kg!”

Thats a bit aggressive Frenchie, you been hitting the expresso machine a bit hard or what

Sorry the quoted price was for Lithium Carbonate which is one of the key ingredients for lithium-ion batteries. I doubt lithium metal would be $600USD per Kg, that sounds very high to me.

“but at the moment H2 is a more reliable, lighter energy storage solution than batteries. Batteries storage capacity depletes over time, so bigger batteries mean bigger waste.”

How can you deem H2 to be reliable when there are no H2 cars available to buy? Doesn’t that tell you something? Battieries can be recycled and don’t involve you driving around with a compressed Hydrogen bomb in your tank.
DGS

“…….driving around with a compressed Hydrogen bomb in your tank.”

In some parts of the world you could use that as advertising FOR fuel cell cars! Wasn’t there an American Oil company using the slogan “a Tiger in your Tank” in the 70′s or 80′s?

Hydrogen is a much missunderstood element. Most people panic and think of the Hindenberg when you talk about the stuff and cars. The way the Hindenburg Burnt had a lot to do with the aluminium and canvas that was visable burning. Its worth remembering that quite a few people survived that crash ( an Areoplane full of AV Gas would had had few if any survours )

Hydrogen itself burns with a clear flame and the heat does not radiate (this makes Hydrogen fires a bugger to spot without getting burnt). If hydrogen leaks its lighter than air properties means it tends to asend, not expand outwards like LPG.

The ideal Fuel Cell arangement would be a Fuel Cell -
Battery set up with the fuel cell generating power to keep the batteries topped up and the car running off the batteries. This would be simular to the way modern Diesel – Electric submarines work, There is even a type of Submarine under development that will be Diesel – Fuel Cell – Electric (Germany – type 212 I think).

Worth watching to see where this Tech evolves.
lazybones

” Most people panic and think of the Hindenberg when you talk about the stuff and cars”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMB2VR0087w

Now consider the Honda FCX tank which is compressed to 350bar or (5000Psi). At that pressure if the tank fails in an accident your going to have a bad day

I think fuel cells have their place in areospace and energy generation, like using excess solar power generated during the day. Converting to H2 then back to electricity at night. But for automotive its just not sustainable enough. The well-to-wheel ratio is just too loo compared to a BEV.
Tom

Lazybones, do you fly at all? You do realise that when you are sitting in a 737 you are sitting in some cases a mere metre away from hydraulic lines at over 3000psi, sufficient pressure to sever human limbs in the event of a rupture. The A380 runs on 5000psi, now if an industry as safety focussed as aviation is comfortable with the mass roll out of technology with these kind of pressures (keep in mind aviation is also more weight critical than the automotive industry) then I think it should be safe for cars.

It amuses me that EV proponents have the same attitudes towards technological development as the EV naysayers did a few years ago, when it comes to fuel cells.
DGS

OK, I checked out the you tube link, it was not a hydrogen fuel tank at the end of the link, just some students arsing around with a large bag of hydroden and a source of ignition. No suprises there. Fill the same size bag with LPG and ignite and you will get the same result, but with more flame and heat.

I remember years ago seeing on a TV program (beyond 2000) technology being demonstrated for holding hydrogen in a small tank in a maner that would be relitivly safe in the event of an accident. The tank was ruptured in the presance of a flame, but did not explode. That was well over 10 years ago, so I imagine this technology has been refined more since.

I can see fuel cell – electric hybrids as the most logical evolution for cars in the longer term future. This doesn’t mean that it will happen as our spiecies isn’t exactly governed by logic.
lazybones

” This doesn’t mean that it will happen as our spiecies isn’t exactly governed by logic”

Not going to argue with that statement

My point with the students and their hydrogen ballon bomb, was that it was not even compressed H2. 5000psi is a big deal. At the end of the day even lithium is explosive, so what ever we drive there will be a fire risk somewhere.

Tom, I did respond to you. But my comment is being moderated because the small room at the front of a plane could be deemed a rude word…Good work CA!!
DGS

Lazybones,

your youtube referance has made me see and added bonus to Fuel Cell powered cars. If you put a tap in the fuel line you can fill balloons from the tank. So very unsafe to have a kid wondering around with a balloon full of hydrogen (especially if smokers are presant), but in certain suburbs it will certainly be done.

You also touched on the issue of manufacture of hydrogen. It can be done sustainably (hydro – wind – solar), or tapped from coal feilds or havested from industries that produce it as a bye product. However as we all know human nature, it will most likely be done the cheapest and easyest way useing existing tecnology. Hydrogen derived from hydrocarbons will be disappointing. (if the process turns Natural Gas into hydrogen and diesel it may be worth it for the short term as Australia will be on a winner)
ROD

WHOM EVER REPLYED, THAT WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF OIL>
DOESN’T KNOW NOTHING ABOUT ARE EARTH,,,, WELL NEVER RUN OUT OF OIL” IF YOU BELEIVE THAT YOU’LL BELEIVE THE SKY IS FALLING….OR

WE WELL NEVER EVER RUN OUT OF OIL OR GAS!!!!!

Lazybones

hmmm, technically yes we’ll always have oil & gas at a what quantity?.

This term refers to the oil and gas we burn for transport and domestic heating. We currently chew through over 70-80Millon barrels of oil per day @250ltrs per barrel (Approx). The price you pay is based on that demand. If that demand is not sustained the price increases. So the term we’re running out really refers to peak oil. The point where we need oil quicker than we can extract it from the ground. If stats of recent oil discoveries are to be believed we are already at peak oil. So 5 years from now we’re going to see very high oil prices which will continue until its fanancially unviable to extract it.