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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @12:05PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @12:05PM (#576537)

    > Filling stations can't operate when the grid is down.

    If I have a full tank of gas, I can drive something over 400 miles (with most IC cars) while I wait for the grid to come back up. Or drive somewhere where they still have power and working gas stations, fill up in a few minutes and have another 400+ miles. If it's looking rough in my local area, I can bring a few 5 gallon (~19 liter) gas containers and fill them too, roughly doubling my range.

    It's really simple, gasoline is a very dense form of energy storage, and it is easy to store for extended periods. Even the large batteries in Tesla cars only store the equivalent energy of a few gallons of gasoline. Going back a few years, the lead-acid battery pack in the GM EV1 stored about the same energy as one gallon (3.8L) of gasoline.

  • (Score: 1) by rylyeh on Tuesday October 03 2017, @01:28PM

    by rylyeh (6726) <{kadath} {at} {gmail.com}> on Tuesday October 03 2017, @01:28PM (#576570)
    Solar Fuel!!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_fuel [wikipedia.org]
    --
    "a vast crenulate shell wherein rode the grey and awful form of primal Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss."