| It is nearly one year since President
Bush issued his statement promoting fuel-cell cars as a top environmental
priority. He committed $2 billion of taxpayers money over five years to
ge the hydrogen programme going which, it seems, is just a drop in the
ocean. In November this year, the US Senate learnt from General Motors
and Royal Dutch/Shell that the infrastructure costs are likely to cost
far more. According to GM it is going to cost anything between $10 billion
to $15 billion to build enough hydrogen fuelling stations to make fuel-cell
vehicles a viable option for consumers. Royal Dutch/Shell put that figure
at around $19 billion – and not only are these figures best guesses,
they are just the start. It was against this background that Beth Lowery,
GM’s vice president, environment and energy, visited William Kimberley
in Birdcage Walk, London to talk about the latest developments.
When it comes to fuel cells, it means having parallel discussions and forming partnerships with governments and energy partners, says Beth Lowery, GM vice president, environment and energy |
|
 |
Elizabeth Lowery, known more informally as Beth Lowery, is one of GM’s
primary spokespersons when it comes to talking to governments –
and not just the US. On her whistlestop visit to the UK she was visiting
Government ministers before leaving for Brussels to talk to EU officials.
“My responsibility is on the policy side. What we work with is government
and having people understand what our commitment is and what our engineers
are working on.”
When it comes to fuel cells, it means “having parallel discussions
and forming partnerships with governments and energy partners so that
when the technology gets to the point that it’s actually going into
the vehicle, we’ve been successful in building an infrastructure
to allow the vision to become a reality. So instead of having the engineers
developing new technology and then later thinking about the government
relations and effects, we want to develop the policy and the education
at the same time. It’s also important to get consumer acceptance
of this new technology early on while working on the infrastructure.”
The figures quoted by GM and Shell, $10-15 billion would pay for 11,700
new fuelling stations, enough so a driver would always be within two miles
of a hydrogen station in major urban areas and one every 25 miles along
major highways. However, in a test site in Washington DC that GM is installing
with Shell, the costs are proving to be far more than anticipated. The
station forecourt, for example, is having to be reinforced to satisfy
safety concerns about trucks carrying hydrogen.
One of the big issues that concerns GM and many of the car companies and
suppliers is that of having international standards – but there
is a downside. “Instead of having conflicting standards all over
the world,” says Lowery, “we want to start out with a harmonised
set. At a very high level, most of the governments of the developed world
recognise the value of this and they are trying to do something in terms
of today’s technology. We are starting to get to a point where governments
want to be helpful, but against that it’s still too early to get
locked too tightly into standards because we don’t want to narrow
the reference points. However, I think it is positive that there is an
interest and an engagement and it’s important to keep different
options open. The European Union has now established a relationship with
the US in terms of fuel cells and the hydrogen economy development and
that kind of collaborative approach is going to be helpful to all of us.
Rather than competing with mine versus yours we should get there much
more efficiently and creatively.
“However, it’s a slow process because so much is now in the
development phase, but we do need to come together as an industry along
with energy partners to work out what we need and what would make sense
as far as the infrastructure is concerned. That work will be ongoing for
some time.
“I do think the other thing that is very important is to continue
to have a focus on the vision so that when you are looking at research
dollars and looking at where governments should be involved, it’s
very important we get that all planned. Putting resources into projects
leads to innovation and technology and the application of technology.
One of the things we at GM are very focused on is to make sure that the
technology can be applied so it’s not research for its own sake.”
Lowery refers to the Autonomy and Hywire fuel cell concepts that was revealed
by GM last year. “The Autonomy concept was something that really
took GM to the next level with the Hywire vehicle showing our commitment
to fuel cells as we had progressed from concept to a driveable vehicle
in 12 months.”
Another issue that GM is assessing is the hydrogen source. “What
makes most sense for the different regions and different economies, because
we suspect there is no one way. Hydrogen is ubiquitous so there are many
options such as nuclear, hydroelectric or bio-mass as the lowest CO2 well-to-wheels
solution.
“We also keep abreast of everything that is going on in the fuel
cell technology development. I believe, for example, that stationary applications
will come sooner than automotive ones that will be helpful in their development.
While the talk is very much of the future and fuel cells, GM is also actively
involved in hybrid technology. In November, it announced that it was adding
a strong hybrid powertrain to its next-generation full-size sports-utility
vehicles and pick-up trucks that debut in 2007. These will use a version
of the advanced hybrid technology that will power 235 transit buses in
Seattle next year.
“If you take a small car, you are already starting with a fuel efficient
vehicle, so why not start first of all with hybrid buses? The hybrid bus
that we’re rolling out of Seattle, which hopefully will be the first
235 units of many thousands of units across the US, is important because
one hybrid is the equivalent of 8,000 small hybrid cars – it’s
a pretty big bang for a bus. So you start there. The buses achieve fuel
savings of up to 60 per cent; the Seattle fleet alone saving an estimated
750,000 (US) gallons of fuel annually.”
Besides Seattle, Allison hybrid transit buses are in pilot programmes
in Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Portland, Salt Lake City, Austin, Houston,
and Newark, as well as Orange County, California and Hartford, Connecticut.
“Our strategy is to go after the highest fuel consuming vehicles
first. We believe this strong hybrid on a full-size truck will save twice
as much fuel per mile as a comparable small hybrid vehicle - with no compromise
in performance or utility. It’s an opportunity for us to see where
the market is going. Importantly, pick-up trucks are the single largest
segment in the US, and these are on the relatively high-end of the consuming
scale, so it’s a real opportunity to get a 10 per cent reduction
and get fairly material savings. It’s a neat way as it socialises
the technology as well.
“I do think that with respect to the hybrid trucks, added value
for the customer is what is important. Traditionally we have not done
a very good job with respect to consumers willing to accept it. The internal
combustion engine has been doing very well, so if you are going to have
consumers switch and have an added cost in doing that you need to look
for added value as well. The trick is to get the value equation so the
consumer will be willing to purchase the hybrid technology. It’s
also why we’re working with governments to encourage consumer incentives.
Technology applied in large volume makes a difference and that is really
what we’re interested in accomplishing.”
Asked whether the fabled school bus offers any opportunities, Lowery replies:
“School bus funding has been an issue before Congress. There have
been discussions about clean bus programmes at governmental level with
different corporations and there is an interest in improving them and
it would be a good application of hybrid or even fuel cell technologies.
However, I guess one of the issues is cost and school buses as I understand
it are about a quarter of the cost of urban transit buses and their duty
cycles are quite different. Our thinking is that urban transit buses make
more sense as the first step because the premium cost of the hybrid pays
back more quickly. It’s makes more of an economic proposition.
“As we begin to build the volume on the urban transit bus, the unit
cost comes down so that hopefully we can start to transition to some of
these other markets like school buses. It’s walking down the innovation
curve to make it more affordable to different applications. In very rough
terms, the premium for hybrid bus technology on an urban transit bus is
roughly 50-60 per cent where it would be roughly 200 per cent on a school
bus. Importantly as well with the larger vehicles, particularly the buses
as opposed to white duty vehicles, there is no air quality benefit for
light duty vehicles from hybrid options except for the CO savings. They
all meet the same emissions standards which in the US is 99 per cent reduced
from uncontrolled levels – so exceptionally clean but no benefit
air quality from hybrid vehicles. However, on the urban transit side there
is a significant air quality benefit in addition to the CO2 savings, so
there is more than reason to like them on full-size bus applications.
“With respect to the global markets, there is not a huge demand
for hybrids right now although obviously there is development in Japan.
However, Europe is focused on diesels, so we’ll test the North American
market and see where it is in respect to hybrids.”
With the talk of diesels, the question is inevitably asked about their
acceptance in North America.
“The price of fuel to a large degree drives behaviours,” says
Lowery. “In the European market you already have quite fuel efficient
products. In North America, with the price of fuel being much lower, the
market has been more focused on its products, so the question is which
technology makes more sense in which market, which is why diesel is more
predominant in Europe.
“Nobody really knows what the solution will be in North America
so given the nature of our business and the large portfolio that we have,
we feel we have to be a player in each one. It is very important, and
we’ve learnt this over many years, that we really have to focus
on the consumer and the market and be ready for it. Given our technology
leadership in powertrain, we want to make sure that we have the best in
diesel and the best in hybrids while at the same time making sure that
we have a business case and making money as we do it.
“No-one really knows how long the bridge is between the internal
combustion engine and fuel cell vehicle. It all depends to whom you talk.
However, the good thing about hybrids is that the development and engineering
going into them will be used in the fuel cell. It’s all part of
the transition.
“It’s a great time to be in automotive engineering right now
with the transition from the combustion engine to the fuel cell.”
 |
|
|
