VW has brought 16 Chinese-market Passat Lingyu fuel cell sedans to U.S. for intensive testing.
While the rest of the world was listening to President Obama outline his industry-supported plan to require that passenger cars and light trucks sold in the U.S. achieve average fuel economy of 35.5 miles per gallon and a 30 percent reduction in CO2 emissions by 2016, I was putting around an industrial section of California’s capital in a car that gets the equivalent of about twice that, with no CO2 from the tailpipe.
It was one of Volkswagen’s previous-generation Chinese-market Passat Lingyu sedans, outfitted with a fuel-cell electric drive that gets its juice by converting hydrogen and oxygen to electricity in an on-board electro-chemical power plant called a fuel cell stack.
The German automaker, mostly noted in green car circles for its clean diesel (turbo direct injection, or TDI) technology, has brought 16 of the hydrogen-electric cars to the California Fuel Cell Partnership facility in West Sacramento for a bout of prolonged testing.
Down, Not Dead
That VW is doing the testing is heartening. The company is one of a handful of major automakers insisting that fuel cell development must continue even though the Obama administration’s energy budget proposal has let the air out of the hydrogen balloon by slashing program funding 60% and diverting most of the $100 million thus saved to battery electric vehicle programs.
(Energy Secretary Stephen Chu, you might recall, justified the hydrogen program cuts by pronouncing that fuel cells aren’t going to be viable mass market automotive technology within the next 15 to 20 years and that government funding needs to go to programs that could come on line more rapidly.)
I asked several VW representatives why, other than to keep flying the fuel- cell electric vehicle (FCEV) flag, they’d scheduled Tuesday’s event as there seemed to be no newsworthy reason for it – the cars aren’t new, their fuel cell systems are a generation behind those being tested by the company in Germany and there were no other VW announcements during the day.
‘Because,’ I was told, ‘the cars are here’ and VW wanted to make sure the handful of U.S. journalists who cover green car technology knew about them and about the fuel cell partnership – which is celebrating its 10th anniversary next week – and its continuing commitment to hydrogen technology.
Obstacles Abound
That’s all well and good – we’re fans even though we know that in order for FCEVs to be viable, fuel cell stack durability has to be improved; costs must be halved and then halved again; the hydrogen to make them work will have to be made with clean electricity, which we don’t have much of yet; and a tremendously expensive national effort will be required to install a fueling infrastructure to keep the vehicles rolling.
It all sounds daunting, but imagine how daunting it would seem if all our vehicles today ran, say, on steam and we discovered water supplies were disappearing but there was lots of this stuff called oil lying around in big pools and all we had to do was pump it out of the ground, break it down chemically and reform it into gasoline and we could burn the stuff -which is highly explosive and caustic and toxic as all get out – in our cars’ engines as a replacement for steam power.
Oh, and we’d have to build a national network of fuel stations so people driving these gasoline cars would be able to keep going when the initial tank of fuel ran dry.
There are always problems. The trick is to be able to look beyond them.
VW numbers itself among the automakers that believe hydrogen fuel cells do have a place in the future of personal transportation – maybe not in 10 years or even 15, but certainly as oil grows scarce and emissions standards get tighter and tighter.
The company isn’t alone, and it doesn’t run in dismal company. Others that have come out strongly for a hydrogen fuel cell future include Toyota, Honda and General Motors. They are part of the California Fuel Cell Partnership, along with VW, Chrysler, Hyundai, Mercedes Benz and Nissan.
Future’s A Mixed Dish
None of the fuel cell backers however, is betting the future on a single technology. Most believe fuel-cell vehicles, when they do become market-ready, will share the market with battery-electric vehicles, diesels, improved gasoline models and cars and trucks using a variety of clean biofuels.
For its part, VW continues to see diesel vehicles – which are about 30 percent more fuel-efficient and 30 percent less carbon-producing than comparable gasoline models – as a big part of its future in the U.S.
The new national drive for a 30 percent cut in automotive greenhouse gases could be the start of an era of diesel popularity here, said VW of America spokeswoman Jill Bratina.
And the automaker, a late and reluctant convert to hybrid technology, nevertheless has a few models in the pipeline and told us to expect ‘a number of hybrid announcements’ from VW toward the end of the year and into 2010.
Battery-electric cars also are in the VW product strategy, said John Tillman, chief of VW of America’s advanced technology powertrain group.
Test, Yes; Demo, No!
As for the Passat Lingyu fuel cell cars we were in Sacramento to drive?
It might have been better if VW hadn’t let us behind the wheel, or had brought a present-generation model over from Germany for a comparison.
The year-old Passat FCEV ran well once rolling – we didn’t get to take it on a long drive or to to push it around corners of to speeds of over 50 mph – but the model we drove (only four of the 16 had the proper insurance coverage for media use) had a software problem that caused it to shudder like a dengue fever victim each time we accelerated away from a stop sign.
It was nice inside, a regular Passat, until things started up. Then the combined whine of the fuel-cell’s air compressor and the roar of the air conditioner system created interior noise levels that would have been unacceptable in the 1950s much less today.
We’ve driven Honda’s FCX Clarity fuel cell sedan and General Motors’ Chevrolet Equinox fuel cell SUV and found both to be ready for prime time.
As an advertisement for the future of green transportation, the VW Passat Lingyu models are simply past their prime.
Granted, they are test cars and VW’s fuel cell team will likely garner tons of valuable information by driving the bejeezus out of them over the next few months.
But we hope VW keeps them out back and uses its present generation models for showing off fuel cell technology to the various politicos and policy makers that regularly visit the partnership facility.
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