GM’s Fuel Cell Fleet Reaches 2,000,000 miles!

[xcel]

The day we can cross the country from North to South and East to West on locally sourced H2 made via_NG, solar, waste, nuclear or whatever will be a day to celebrate.

Wayne Gerdes - CleanMPG - June 20, 2011

An Opel HydroGen4 fuel cell demonstration vehicle in Germany covered the two millionth mile of GM's global fuel cell market test fleet. The car has been used since early 2009 by ADAC, the biggest roadside assistance organization in Europe. GM and Opel have accumulated more miles with their fuel cell passenger car fleet than any other auto manufacturer.

The Opel HydroGen4 fleet is part of the Clean Energy Partnership (CEP), a European lighthouse project funded by the German ministry of transport. Since 2008 ten HydroGen4 cars driven by partners like ADAC, Allianz, Bild/Axel Springer AG, Coca-Cola, Enertrag, Hilton, IKEA, Linde, Pace and Total in the Berlin region are testing the fuel cell technology and the hydrogen re-fueling and infrastructure on a daily basis, while providing many different usage profiles.

The CEP project was extended in 2010 and 2011 to include the Hamburg, Baden-Württemberg, North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse regions. Opel will support this deployment by strengthening its market test fleet in Germany.

Charlie Freese, Executive Director of GM's Global Fuel Cell engineering activities:

"This milestone is a significant landmark on our road to making H2 FCVs a reality. We will use the knowledge gained to improve the affordability and reliability of our H2 FC technology."

The final affordable H2 powered FCV solution with an initial infrastructure build out is possibly < a decade away and I cannot wait

[SD3_Driver]

That is an avg of 200,000 miles per vehicle, a lot of miles....

[elderauto]

Germany is moving a lot faster than the U. S. or anywhere else in the world in regard to building the infrastructure for FCV's. And at last count Daimler had the largest FCV fleet, mostly in Germany. GM has a big presence in Germany, too along with several other automakers, so I think 2015 is the date to watch in regard to seeing consumer fuel cell vehicles on the road in Germany.

[herm]

Good, let them develop the tech.. we should be working on batteries and natural gas - gasoline dual fuel engines.