Press Release

Hydrogen Cars Are Not For The Future, They're Here

High gas prices have everyone looking for less expensive forms of transportation something which CBS4 Consumer Investigator Al Sunshine looked at with an exclusive tour of a General Motors high-tech SUV that could soon be hitting the market.

Monica Murphy showed the latest GM hydrogen fueled SUV, which looks like a regular SUV except for the gas cap. The GM hydrogen product specialist explained, We're filling it with gaseous hydrogen. We're filling it in a fueling port located in pretty much the same location as your gas vehicle.

The mid-sized, four-door could be the face of the future for personal transportation. It's a GM so-called technology test bed that runs on hydrogen. It turns out hydrogen-powered cars and trucks which is pretty much being developed by most of the world's biggest automakers.

Instead of burning fuel in an engine, hydrogen powered fuel cells are more like batteries, using an electrochemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen to create electricity.

When it was tested by Sunshine, he explained that he found the hydrogen-powered SUV's pickup to be pretty good and he said it felt pretty zippy around town.

Like other electric-hybrid vehicles, it also generates electricity through the braking system as the wheels roll.

The dashboard shows how it all works. Sunshine demonstrated how when his foot was not on the pedal, the indicator stayed in the 'green' and that meant it was actually generating electricity. When he stepped on the accelerator to go a little faster, the power gauge went out of the 'green' to show electricity was now being used.
GM said it has spent more than a billion-dollars over the past 40 years to develop this cutting-edge technology. It is hoping to have its first hydrogen-powered products on the market over the next five years.

But before these kinds of products hit the road, there needs to be hydrogen fuel stations developed around the country.
Murphy said a kilogram of hydrogen is about the same measurement as a gallon of gas. She added, This takes 4 kilograms, so we're talking about $12 to fill up the vehicle.
If one gets 200 miles of driving for $12, that comes out to about 50 miles per gallon.
Max Alvarez, a gas distributor, explained that so far there is no financial incentive for station operators to invest in this new technology yet.

He said he's not aware of any station operation willing to put in hydrogen filling stations just yet. Alvarez added, Not to the best of my knowledge, most everybody's been concerned with the new regulations over ethanol.But hydrogen is still a hot topic all over the Internet.

It's easy to find do-it-yourself hydrogen generators ranging in price from several hundred to several thousand dollars. They all promise increased fuel mileage out of almost any vehicle by just using water to generate hydrogen gas. But these products are not the same technology as GMs' hydrogen fuel cells.
Remember, hydrogen is an explosive gas and could be very dangerous, and GM says it's not a project for people to consider themselves.