GM ramping up for fuel cell car production

General Motors is tooling up to start producing fuel cell cars, announcing today that it's moving more than 500 fuel cell engineers from research into development.

"Moving our fuel cell experts from advanced development laboratories to our core engineering organizations highlights our strong commitment to developing electrically-driven vehicles using diverse energy sources," said Tom Stephens, GM Group Vice President of Global Powertrain.

More than 400 fuel cell engineers will report to GM's Powertrain Group to begin production engineering of fuel cell systems. Another 100 are to transfer to GM's Global Product Development organization to start integrating fuel cells into future company vehicles.

Some 150 fuel cell scientists and program support staff are to remain as part of GM's Research and Development center to continue advanced research in hydrogen storage, fuel cells and program commercialization, the company said.

The transition is aimed at expediting the company's efforts to produce vehicles that displace petroleum through energy diversity.

"This says, 'Not only have we done it in a lab, we're ready to do it for real,'" Larry Burns, GM's vice president for research and development told the Detroit News.

"We really have worked on this fuel cell technology long enough and hard enough to be able to start to move this into production."

Competitor Honda seems to feel the same way. The company announced last month that its stylish FCX fuel cell concept car was being fast-tracked into limited production. Honda anticipates placing small numbers of the vehicles into leases in North America and elsewhere next year—ten years earlier than previously projected (see Honda to make fuel cell cars 10 years earlier than thought.)

At the same time, Toyota recently suggested it's struggling with its fuel cell technology (see the Cleantech Group's Hydrogen economy bubbling along.)

GM shared details about its fifth-generation fuel cell system technology when it unveiled the fuel cell-powered E-Flex version of the Chevrolet Volt at the Shanghai Auto Show in April. Its latest system is half the size of its predecessor, yet provides the same power and performance.

GM's fourth-generation system currently powers a handful of prototype Chevrolet Sequel and Equinox Fuel Cell vehicles.

Last month, the Sequel became the first electrically-driven fuel cell vehicle to achieve more than 300 miles on one tank of hydrogen, in and out of traffic on public roads.

GM plans to place approximately 100 Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell vehicles with consumers in New York, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles later this year as part of a prototype trial project.

Today, GM did not commit to a date for when its fuel cell vehicles might be available in quantity, but GM's Larry Burns had recently suggested to reporters that 2012 seemed achievable (see GM fuel cell cars 'in showrooms by 2012'.)

Leading GM's fuel cell engineering team is J. Byron McCormick, executive director of GM Fuel Cell Activities.

McCormick has been working on electric and fuel cell research and development for more than 30 years. He was instrumental in the development of GM's EV-1 electric vehicle, and has run GM's fuel cell activities for the last 10 years.

General Motors is the world's largest automaker, employing about 280,000 people around the world.

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