According to Fuel Cell Works, General Motors has taken its Project Driveway campaign on the road to China. The Chevy Equinox Fuel Cell Vehicle was introduced this week in Beijing by this summer’s gold medal Olympian Wu Minxia and environmentalist and actress Liu Zi.
The Project Driveway tour kicked off at the Olympic Water Cube at Pangu Plaza. According to Liu Zi, “As China becomes more and more industrialized, air pollution and petroleum dependence are becoming bigger issues, I am pleased that General Motors is taking a leadership position to help reduce our dependence on oil and develop future vehicles with zero emissions.”
GM began rolling out the Equinox FCV earlier this year in the U.S. in Southern California, New York and Washington DC in certain zip codes that corresponded with close distances to public hydrogen refueling stations. The Chevy Equinox FCV contains GM’s fourth generation fuel cell (the fifth generation FC is in the works) and it contains 3 carbon fiber 10,000 psi tanks.
In 2006, China had 22 million private cars on the road. In 2007, that number rose to 35 million. With this kind of growth in the automobile sector, it’s encouraging to see that hydrogen cars are at least beginning to make their way into this marketplace. Getting zero emissions vehicles into the hands of consumers as soon as possible is paramount to curbing China’s greenhouse gas emissions, which were painfully visible during this past summer’s Olympic Games.