Just two days after the national election, two car magazines are pondering the possibilities that second-term President Obama will be friendly to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles this time around. Largely because of the cool attitude of Energy Secretary Stephen Chu, the President hadn’t warmed up to fuel cells in the first part of his first term. By the end of that term both Chu and the President were starting to believe that fuel cells would be useful in many clean, green applications.
Now that President Obama has been re-elected, Anita Lienert, correspondent for Edmunds Inside Line states, “As President Obama begins to shape his legacy after Tuesday’s re-election, his agenda could include a renewed push to promote electric cars — and a greater interest in hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.”
Could this be true? Yes, it certainly could. Earlier this year President Obama bumped up the CAFÉ standards saying that by the year 2025 all automakers must have a corporate average fuel economy of 54.5 mpg. One path to hitting this mark would be to produce more EVs and FCV’s.
Justin Cupler from the online car magazine Top Speed has a slightly different take on what the future CAFÉ standards may mean in regard to sports cars. According to Cupler, the first scenario is adding more turbochargers to cars and the second scenario is the elimination of the most powerful sports cars. And, of course, according to Top Speed’s Cupler, “The third scenario is one that would satisfy our itch for fast cars and the EPA’s itch for eco-friendly cars, and that is the widespread development of super powerful electric, hydrogen fuel cell or natural gas sports cars.”
Now, one can only hope that President Obama’s evolving stance on green energy includes a place for hydrogen vehicles in the mix. The “All of the Above” energy strategy wouldn’t live up to its name unless hydrogen got a place at the green table.
I think that Obama’s people are asking themselves one question – “how do we avoid becoming the subject of a conspiracy theory?”