The Hydrogen Road Tour 2008 starts August 10 and continues through August 23 this year. Covering 31 cities in 13 days and 18 different states, the Hydrogen Road Tour 2008 will showcase fuel cell vehicles, hydrogen ICE vehicles and hydrogen refueling stations along the way.
Starting off in Portland, Maine and ending in Los Angeles, California the Hydrogen Road Tour is being organized by the National Hydrogen Association, the California Fuel Cell Partnership, the U. S. DOT and U. S. DOE.
On the second day of the road tour, Nuvera Fuel Cells will be unveiling the first hydrogen fueling station in Massachusetts. Fuel cell and hydrogen internal combustion vehicles will be featured on this trip from the following manufacturers including BMW, Daimler, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Toyota and Volkswagen.
On the third day, the vehicles will stop in Connecticut with an event partly organized by the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology, Incorporated. On August 15 and 16, the caravan of hydrogen cars will stop at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte, where the vehicles will be refueled using mobile stations. The public can look under the hood of the vehicles and several guests will be invited to drive to the next stop in Greer, South Carolina.
The Hydrogen Road Tour 2008 is a chance for automakers and energy companies to showcase the advancements in the H2 industry over the past year. Getting hydrogen cars and fueling stations before the public eye is imperative to consumer acceptance in venues that one can expect to be as fun as they are informative.
Well, the official website has taken down its list of cities and dates, so here is a link to the old map that lists this information.
https://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/images/blog/hydrogen-road-tour-2008.jpg
It’s mighty odd why they would not want to promote this info to let people know when hydrogen cars are coming to their town.
This afternoon we trekked down to Portland, Maine, to look at the hydrogen fleet. Snazzy-looking cars; dreadful presentation. We had seen notice of the tour-stop in a local paper last week, but when I searched their website under “events,” it was not listed. The location for the display was a scenic park by the Maine coast, but there were no signs for the event until we were well-inside the park.
There, in a tight semi-circle, were the cars–from BMW, VW, Daimler, Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Kia and Hundai. None from GM or Ford. Each was accompanied by people who were prepared to discuss the technology of their car(s). There were a few folks from a California Hydrogen organization, two local exhibitors, only one of which had anything to do with hydrogen.
No organizational signage, no overarching literature, no presentations at all addressing the hydrogen production/distribution problem. Perhaps the Portland, Maine stop is a sort of dress rehearsal, but if it’s a sample of the rest of the tour’s stops, someone is wasting substantial money and time since it provided no useful information about either the progress of or the obstacles to the emergence of hydrogen transportation.
And, btw, only FC vehicles; no ICE.
Yes, it looks like they are doing quite a haphazard job in promoting this event. The road tour has already started and their website still doesn’t have the itinerary that they had pulled off a week or so ago.
By the way, if BMW was there, it was most likely the Hydrogen 7 luxury car they’ve been showing off for the last year and this is an ICE vehicle.
They made it into New York City and back out with very little notice and absolutely no time to see what the vehicles were like. Got news over John Gamblings morning show on WOR 710 radio from some Admiral. Was told they’d be at Liberty Science Center. The Science Center’s website contained no info. Finally found a DOT site with some info but by that time they’d left for Delaware with a stop late yesterday in Allentown, PA for guest only – no public viewing. They totally voided the mid-west, I suspect because they’re affraid of the Ethanologist.
Yes Ethanologist…its become a religion or ideology or both out there on the farm where they still really believe that someone will pay them more for they’re corn than ever before…not so!
I guess they want Hydrogen to be primarily a bi-coastal or strictly LA fuel. It kinda makes sense provided that the vehicles that are delivered are bi-fuel in nature to allow them to operate on gasoline once outside of the LA basin or the “free territory” as Woodie Allen described it in Sleepers.
Actually, it kind of makes sense since pollution from automobiles is greatest there and Angelenos are autobased life forms. Besides California uses more gasoline than the rest of the 49 states combined. Or is it 56 States combined? Kinda confused??? Maybe if they don’t deliver on Hydrogen vehicles we could give California back to Mexico and then all our problems would be solved as they’d get their gasoline directly from the State owned oil company leaving the rest to us!