Drivers get behind wheel of the future
By By Sharon Terlep
'Project Driveway' puts GM's fuel cell test vehicle in the hands of 100 for an extensive test drive.
October 23, 2007
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- General Motors Corp. will dispatch 100 fuel cell-powered SUVs to the nation's largest cities in an effort to prove the high-tech vehicles have a future in the mainstream.
The Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell is still too costly for the average motorist and no company has stepped up yet to the build stations needed to refuel the vehicles.
But the automaker hopes winning over a small but influential group of consumers will help build support for hydrogen vehicles and sell GM as a company capable of innovation.
"We've made significant progress from something that looks like a laboratory curiosity to something with commercial viability," said Larry Burns, GM's vice president of research, development and strategic planning. He kicked off the Equinox project Monday in White Plains, where one of three experimental fueling stations will be located.
The Equinox would be powered by a battery matched with hydrogen fuel cells that emit only water.
Other automakers have produced hydrogen concept vehicles, though none have dispatched public fleets as large as GM's.
In the program called Project Driveway, 100 vehicles will go to families, politicians and celebrities in New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. They get the vehicles Jan. 1.
Test drivers were selected through an extensive application process. GM said more that 11,000 people applied.
"The environmental aspect isn't what got me," said Eric Rotbard, one of the consumers chosen to test the Equinox Fuel Cell. An attorney who works in White Plains, Rotbard said he was fed up with rising gas prices and became interested in what the auto industry was doing to move away from petroleum.
"This seemed like more that a publicity stunt," he said.
GM, in a race with Toyota Motor Corp. and other automakers to deliver an answer to the nation's dependency on foreign oil, has gone public with its work on alternative fuels. The automaker hopes the work will steal some luster from Toyota, which won over consumers with its iconic Prius hybrid.
In addition to hydrogen fuel cell technology, GM is working to develop the first gasoline-electric plug-in vehicle, known as the Chevrolet Volt.
Jim Kliesch, a senior analyst in the clean vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, Mass., said GM's Project Driveway program showed the automaker was following through on promises to develop clean technology. But, he said, the program is a far cry from a company-wide commitment toward becoming a truly green corporation.
"If GM and the other auto companies wanted to really make significant improvements in the environmental friendliness of their vehicles, they would make more of an effort than they are now," Kliesch said. "This is technology that's decades away from being in everybody's driveway, and is certainly no reflection on the environmental performance of vehicles currently in GM's showrooms."
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