California Hydrogen Highway loses support

California’s Hydrogen Highway project has had some set-backs as of late.  This project is an initiative sponsored by the State of California to install hydrogen refueling stations at 100 service stations throughout California.  The idea is to provide a way for a hydrogen car driver (and municipal busses in the mean time) to drive from southern to northern California without concern for running out of hydrogen.  Most notably has been a pull-back from PG&E from developing several fueling stations. From the San Jose Merc article:

“Things have changed,” said Jill Egbert, manager of PG&E’s Clean Air Transportation division. “We feel hydrogen is a long-term solution, but there is no one technology that will be the silver bullet to meet transportation needs. From a resource standpoint, we feel a more pressing need to see how electric vehicles will affect our grid.”

While this is certainly a bit of a disappointment to lose PG&E’s support, it’s not terribly surprising.  PG&E has been doing a lot of development on Vehicle to Grid technologies for PHEVs.  In the short term, that sounds like a really productive use of their time and attention.  PHEVs have gotten a great push in the last two years – certainly more than hydrogen – and could represent a great near-term opportunity for them.

But I disagree that hydrogen is necessarily a long-term development.  While there are clearly difficulties with hydrogen, one of the big ones is the lack of retail infrastructure.  The hydrogen highway is a great way for a government entity to partner with the private sector to provide this platform.  It makes investments by GM and Honda – both with prototype fuel cell models – more worthwhile.

This isn’t the end of the world for this project.  I’m a big fan of hydrogen – albeit it’s more hope than technology that is driving my sentiment.  I think it would be a great option for fueling cars and other parts of our powered world.  While hydrogen can’t be produced and managed very well, it can be done.  With a small number of hydrogen cars on the road, we might have just enough to get started in the coming year.  We can spend the next 50 years developing the rest of the infrastructure that’s needed.  Afterall, we didn’t really have any streets when the car was invented.  So I don’t think we have to wait for all the planets to align in order to get started.

Provoq concept Video

GM to announce Hydrogen FC Cadillac Crossover

GM has announced the Cadillac Provoq Fuel Cell crossover concept at the Consumer Electronic show in Las Vegas.  The overall look is something like a Saturn Vue with a Cadillac fascia and interior. It’s clearly some lovely drawings. I will be at the Detroit Auto Show next week and will endeavor to get a photo of the actual concept.

It’s nice to see that GM hasn’t given up on its hydrogen initiatives. While things these days seem to be all hybrids and ethanol, hydrogen still has some great opportunities associated with it. It seems that Honda has beaten GM to the gate with their FCX Clarity model. But this concept seems like a really exciting car upon which to develop their own fuel cell technology while staying true to their core market’s demand for crossovers.

This is an interesting step for Cadillac. This brand, while making great strides in recent years, still struggles against the Lexus’, Mercedes, and BMWs of the world. This is a sharp looking concept that could continue to push the brand’s image to include “green” along with luxurious and high tech.

This is a concept car so not everything on it is very reasonable. Most notably are the solar panels in the sun roof that are to power all the interiors (lights, radio, etc). That is actually a very reasonable design that, if plausibly introduced into an automotive supply chain, should be introduced in future Cadillac models.

If I were a betting man, I’d say Cadillac will make some version of this in the coming months. This system uses the E-Flex system (from the Chevy Volt Concept).  Given that GM is going to produce the Volt, it seems reasonable that this type of vehicle isn’t far behind (perhaps not with hydrogen as an option, but with a more conventional fuel).  However, there’s also been an announcement of a 2-Mode hybrid Saturn Vue. I don’t see any reasons why this concept couldn’t be swung into this same platform.   So there are many options upon which to develop this concept.  I would assume that GM move forward with at least one of them.  I think I want one.

Images from Wired.com