Carmakers serious about alternative fuels

By Alexander Corne

SPACE SHUTTLE fuel cell technology could find its way into road cars early next century.

It could offer cars as big as a Mercedes S-Class fuel consumption of about 3.0 liters per 100km, while almost completely cutting harmful exhaust emissions.

Chrysler Corp researchers are working on a way to extract hydrogen from gasoline using an on-board processing plant. The hydrogen is then used to generate electricity to run an electric motor.

The benefits of this type of technology is that it uses existing gasoline stations, allowing motorists to fill up just as they do now.

Using gasoline to generate electricity means existing refining and distribution channels will be maintained. At present consumption rates, there is enough gasoline to last 40 years. If consumption is drastically reduced by the advent of new technology, the world supply of gasoline should last much longer.

Carmakers recognize that even if there was an endless supply of crude oil from which to make gasoline, engine technology as we know it has to change fundamentally in the next 20 years in order to comply with increasingly strict emission regulations.

The United States has the toughest proposed emission regulations, with California on the West Coast suffering the worst pollution and having even tougher rules regarding emissions.

America's Big Three carmakers, Chrysler, Ford and General Motors are all working on alternative fuel systems.

At present, Ford sells a variety of alternative fuel vehicles, but most use an engine as we recognize it today.

Ford sells Taurus models converted to run on cleaner gases such as methanol and ethanol. Methanol cuts exhaust pollution by about 30 percent.

Natural gas is used in Ford's largest car, the Crown Victoria, as well as commercial vehicles such as pickups and vans. These vehicles run on gas or gasoline, because the supply infrastructure for gas refills is restricted.

Ford also offers vehicles that run on propane gas, which cuts smog forming hydrocarbons by 55 percent, and 35 percent fewer hazardous nitrogen oxide gases.

This year, Ford is to introduce an electric-powered Ranger pickup truck. This will be used in fleets which will be able to park vehicles overnight to be recharged.

Meanwhile, Honda in the United States is leasing a fleet of 300 small town-cars called the EV Plus. This two-door hatch seats four and has an urban driving range of 200km, while its top speed is an impressive 130kmh.

The EV Plus will cost US$500 a month to lease, or $54,000 if you wanted to buy one outright, a phenomenally expensive exercise, given a gasoline-powered entry level Civic costs about $10,000.

General Motors, through its Saturn brand, sells an electric car called EV1. The radically styled electric car can be leased from US$480 a month.

Ford dominates sales of alternative fuel vehicles in the U.S., with about 90 percent of the estimated 10,000 sales each year.

Although 10,000 sales might sound impressive, about 15.4 million new gasoline and diesel powered cars were sold in the U.S. last year.

While these vehicles demonstrate alternative methods of utilizing existing technology, the Chrysler fuel cell concept takes automotive power a stage further.

The concept relies on an electric motor. By using a fuel cell, the car's range is not limited to the length of time the battery can hold its charge.

Range is determined like conventional cars on the size of the gasoline tank.

Storing gasoline is easier and safer than hydrogen, which has to be compressed and stored at very low temperatures. Hydrogen is volatile and has to be stored in a complex, heavy and expensive tank.

But by breaking down gasoline into constituents, by applying heat to convert it to a gas and siphoning off the hydrogen, Chrysler's technicians were able to get around the tricky transportation issue.

There are still problems associated with managing residue gases from the chemical process, such as carbon monoxide.

However, clever on-board cleaning agents and a sulfur trap mean the fuel cell concept is clean enough to meet the most stringent U.S. emission regulations.

Chrysler thinks its new method of using hydrogen is workable. But don't expect to see fuel cell powered cars of this type on the road much before 2015. Even so, that is about 10 years sooner than previously believed.