Hydrogen-Fueled Race Car Showcases Future Technologies

John Roach
for National Geographic News

October 5, 2005

A record-breaking race car powered by a hydrogen fuel cell offers proof that development of alternative-energy vehicles is well under way—and that widespread use of eco-cars might be on the horizon.

The car, called the PAC-Car II, set a world record in fuel efficiency earlier this year when it achieved the equivalent of 12,665 miles a gallon (5,384 kilometers a liter) of gasoline.

The record was broken at the Shell Eco-Marathon this June in Ladoux, France. During the race, the vehicle consumed just 0.036 ounces (about a gram) of hydrogen to drive 12.85 miles (20.68 kilometers) at an average speed of 19 miles (30 kilometers) an hour.

The PAC-Car II showcases technologies the automobile industry is developing for fuel-efficient roadworthy vehicles, said Lino Guzzella, a professor of mechanical engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

The low-profile, aerodynamic car weighs about 66 pounds (30 kilograms) and runs solely on a hydrogen fuel cell that powers two electric motors. The driver sits in a prone position and steers with a joystick.

"The reason why [it's so efficient] is simple: It takes much less energy to move it around. Mechanical loss has been minimized," Guzzella, who oversaw the student-led PAC-Car II project, said.

John Heywood is a professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Sloan Automotive Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. He said eco-race cars like PAC-Car II are fun and have important technical benefits.

"But of course they are not real—or perhaps a better way to say it is they occupy a very special reality," he said, referring to the commercial potential of the concept car.

Efficient Technology

The technologies and concepts that make PAC-Car II so fuel efficient—lightweight materials, aerodynamic design, hydrogen fuel cells—are well known in the automotive industry, Guzzella said.

One automobile manufacturer is already adopting some of the computer hardware and software that help PAC-Car II run. But the eco-car's current design is not directly transferable to roadworthy vehicles, he added.

"This is not something you are going to see on the road. It was meant to beat the world record … That was the objective," he said. When the project started, the world record stood at 9,455 miles a gallon (4,020 kilometers a liter).

Guzzella added that the fuel-efficient technologies demonstrated by PAC-Car II might debut in road-worthy cars within 20 years.

For example, some energy experts laud hydrogen fuel cells as the power source of the future. The technology converts the chemical energy of hydrogen and oxygen into electrical energy, and water is the only byproduct.

But according to Heywood of the Sloan Automotive Lab, widespread adoption of core technologies such as hydrogen fuel cells likely won't happen for about 50 years. The general public, he said, often forgets that there are already upwards of 700 million gasoline-powered cars on the world's roads.

"To make a difference to a sizeable fraction of that big number takes a long, long time, and [fuel cell] technology is not ready yet. It costs too much and it's not robust enough, though people are working hard to make it better," he said.

Industry Challenges

According to Heywood, who has studied the automobile industry for nearly 40 years, incorporating fuel efficient technologies into cars is a costly process. To cover the costs, the industry requires assurances that a demand exists for fuel efficiency.

With gasoline prices currently hovering around $3 (U.S.) a gallon, is demand for fuel efficiency growing?

"I think yes, the public demand for more efficient vehicles will grow," Heywood said. "But the public doesn't realize they won't get that for nothing. What nobody wants to talk about is the need to drive smaller and lighter vehicles."

According to Guzzella, small size is indeed one of the keys behind PAC-Car II's success. "It's a very tiny thing," he said. What the eco-car demonstrates, however, is that there is no single solution to improved fuel efficiency.

Heywood agrees. "There are several promising paths forward," he said. "There's going to be a number of technologies that get developed and tried, and we don't know how this will play out."

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