Beta vs. VHS?; Fuel cell developers take differing tacks in search for hydrogen Holy Grail.(General Motors and DaimlerChrysler)(Brief Article)

When last we opened the hood to peek into the weird world of fuel cell vehicles, automakers were in agreement on one thing: Electric vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells represent the best hope for the long-term survival of the automobile.

Everything else was up in the air, with the biggest argument centering on the best way to obtain hydrogen needed to feed fuel cell stacks to produce electricity. A year or so later, that Beta vs. VHS-type question remains unresolved, but not for a lack of trying on the part of automakers.

At General Motors, engineers are pursuing hydrogen via reforming-``cracking''-gasoline, either aboard a vehicle or at the local filling station. This notion is embodied in a fuel cell/battery hybrid Chevrolet S-10. The fuel cell gets hydrogen from an onboard gasoline reformer. Along with testing and monitoring equipment, the fuel cell stacks and reformer catalyst needed to get hydrogen from low-sulfur gasoline fill up more than half of the truck's bed. It was already bloated with 1265 pounds of batteries (their output is needed for accelerative bursts); the fuel cell and reformer add another 1020 pounds, pushing total curb weight to 6300. That's one heavy little environmentally friendly pickup.

Ponderous performance doesn't bother Larry Burns, GM's vice president of research and development and planning. Instead, he sees the S-10 as another milestone in the marathon to putting a functional fuel cell vehicle on the road by 2010. The rolling laboratory, historic in its own right as the first driveable fuel cell vehicle with an onboard gasoline reformer that a year ago would have filled a large laboratory room, boasts a potential fuel economy of 40 mpg and a theoretical range of 525 miles. By being able to operate at below-freezing temperatures, the S-10 clears another hurdle in the quest for everyday driveability, but its six-minute startup time is still prohibitively slow. But compared to the half-hour it took to start GM's first fuel cell vehicle in 1998, or the 15 minutes it took for the ...