Yesterday I talked about General Motors trying to mainstream the Chevy Equinox fuel cell vehicle by promoting it on the teen sitcom Ruby and the Rockits, which appears tonight. But the question that USA Today is asking is will GM’s Project Driveway, featuring the Equinox EFCEV survive at all?
According to the online newspaper, GM may need another $50 million to $70 million from the government in order to continue this program. Now, it’s no secret that the American public is tired of the word “bailout”.
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And it is also no secret that there are many people with anti-hydrogen agendas or people who are just uneducated about hydrogen vehicles. These people may want Project Driveway to fail.
But, even though General Motors has accepted $49.4 billion in bailout money from the U. S. government, none of this money has gone towards hydrogen research. Emerging from bankruptcy GM has decided to cut 1,100 dealerships plus shedding some of its less profitable brands of automobiles, but the hydrogen program so far has been untouched.
One has to wonder, though if this will remain the case? With the Obama administration unenthusiastic about hydrogen and in fact asking GM’s CEO Rick Wagoner to step down a few months back this may not bode well for Project Driveway getting government dollars to pursue hydrogen car research.
Then again private investors and different partnerships may develop in order to keep the project alive. Only time will tell, how this shakes out. So we’ll have to keep an eye on this one as it either develops or devolves.
I’m concerned about Obama granting over a billion dollars for production of facilities to produce batteries for BEVs and EREVs. Never mind that the Volt
gas/electric hybrid promises to cost $40k and it will only travel 40 miles
( supposedly ) without burning gas. If the Volt fuel cell ever gets built, who
cares if you forget to plug it in when there is a hydrogen back up?
Obama is clearly prejudiced against fuel cell technology as evidenced by
the absence of money for commercialization of fuel cell vehicles.
If GM is stupid enough to pursue a gas hybrid that doesn’t make financial sense when it could push for the addition of ammonia to gasoline instead,
it deserves to die. Unfortunately, the government is propping GM up at
taxpayers expense. Obama is diverting money away from fuel cell and hydrogen production/distribution technology that is sorely needed. Taxpayer
money should NOT be wasted on batteries where it could be better spent on
making fuel cell technology affordable.
Obama needs to stop being prejudiced against hydrogen and fuel cells. Sadly,
he is so powerful right now with a favorable Congress behind him.