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posted by CoolHand on Tuesday October 03 2017, @04:52AM   Printer-friendly
from the whats-better-than-twenty-electric-eels dept.

General Motors is the latest car company to unveil plans for an emissions-free future. On Monday morning, the US' largest automaker announced that the next 18 months will see two new electric vehicles join the Bolt EV in showrooms, and 18 more are due by 2023. "GM believes in an all-electric future and a world free of automotive emissions," said Mark Reuss, GM's executive VP for product development, purchasing, and supply chain. "When the Bolt EV was announced at CES it was described as a platform, and this is the next step."

[...] Many of these cars will be built on an evolution of the Bolt's architecture using a second-generation battery pack. But they won't just be battery EVs—GM's electric future will involve hydrogen fuel cells. "We need to meet customer needs, whether that's the school run, a fun summer drive, or towing 1,000s of lbs. It can't be a one-size-fits-all approach," Reuss said.

GM and Honda have been collaborating on hydrogen fuel cell technology since 2013, and more recently the US Army has been testing a hydrogen-powered Chevrolet Colorado truck. "Now we're taking the technology to launch," said Charlie Freese, GM's executive director of fuel cell business, citing commercial and military applications as the initial goal. The fuel cells will be built at its Brownstown plant, which also makes the batteries in the Bolt and Volt.

Time to unload that gas car before it loses all trade-in value?


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by BasilBrush on Tuesday October 03 2017, @07:02AM (4 children)

    by BasilBrush (3994) on Tuesday October 03 2017, @07:02AM (#576468)

    They're screwed. They're still talking about hydrogen fuel cells. They are dead in the water. But typically GM don't see that as they can't see beyond the concept of a filling station with fossil fuel.

    (Any yes, whilst hydrogen could be expensively created by electrolysing water, it currently comes out of oil wells.)

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  • (Score: 1) by WillR on Tuesday October 03 2017, @02:00PM

    by WillR (2012) on Tuesday October 03 2017, @02:00PM (#576585)
    They're a giant bureaucracy, is it really a surprise the top bosses are dinosaurs whose vision of what "The Future(tm)" means crystallized some time in the 1970s?
  • (Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Tuesday October 03 2017, @04:14PM (1 child)

    by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Tuesday October 03 2017, @04:14PM (#576642)

    GM really doesn't have a good track record with electric vehicles.

    Try watching Who Killed the Electric Car [imdb.com], it sums up GM's view on the tech quite well.

    --
    "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @06:33PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @06:33PM (#576720)
      Whether you love GM or hate them, the reason to trust them on their shift to electrical now is that they're following the rest of the industry.

      Also note that the Chevy Volt is an excellent product, and would have been a smash hit for GM if fuel prices from 2009 to present had not been so low compares to the 2007-2008 spike.
  • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday October 03 2017, @06:21PM

    by LoRdTAW (3755) on Tuesday October 03 2017, @06:21PM (#576713) Journal

    Fuel cells feel so early 1980's. At least that was when I was first familiar with the tech and it made a few rounds in popular science and mechanics as a possible automotive battery. Up until then, all we had were lead acid or nicad batteries while Lithium and NiMH batteries were in their infancy.