Pack of Hydrogen-Fueled Cars Roll into Seattle
One possible future for sustaining our car-loving nature is on display in South Lake Union today in Seattle’s first hydrogen-powered car show. The show, at the Propel station at 609 Westlake Avenue N., features demonstration cars from Volkswagen, BMW, KIA, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Toyota, Daimler-Chrysler, and Nissan. They will be on display until 3:30 p.m. today.
On the outside, they’re the same SUV-heavy cars we’ve come to know and love. On the inside, they are powered by hydrogen, one of the most combustible elements known to man, but it is also one of the most abundant. Don’t worry about safety.
"Hydrogen is present in the fuels we already use to power our cars," said Todd Suckow, a representative from Hyundai Motor Company. "We’ve simply added redundant safety features. Our fleet has been using these for several years with near-perfect safety records."
Suckow points out that, unlike gasoline, which is combusted in an engine to drive the pistons and which has a toxic emission, hydrogen-powered cars convert the hydrogen fuel into electricity, and the waste product, such as it is, is water.
Hyundai currently has a fleet of demonstration vehicles on the road, some of which are being used by the state of California. They hope to have consumer-ready vehicles by 2015.
GM was also on hand to showcase its vehicle and acknowledge a program that will hopefully help the company weather its Chapter 11 bankruptcy, announced earlier this morning.
"There is no doubt," said Dawn McKenzie, an assistant manager with GM, "that the hydrogen program will be a huge part of our reinvention."
GM has been justly criticized for its inability to keep up with the times and its backward thinking over the past two decades leading to its decline. But they have thrown themselves into hydrogen-fueled technology with abandon, and, frankly, you have to be impressed.
GM currently has the largest demonstration fleet in the country with more than 110 cars, and they’ve already logged more than 700,000 miles. "USPS is using our cars to deliver mail, Disney has some vehicles on their studio lot, and we have everyday customers, who are driving their kids to school and soccer matches, who can sign up for a two-month test drive."
GM believes it will have consumer models ready for purchase in the same 2015 time period. For the record, hydrogen technology is twice as efficient as gasoline engines and drivers can expect very high mileage, in the 60-70 mpg range, will much less harm to the environment.
