Fuel cells are really being worked on now. The Bush administration discontinued a $1.5 billion Clinton-era project to
develop an 80 miles per gallon car by 2004, and in place of that, they started FreedomCAR (CAR for cooperative
automotive research), which they promised $125 million for next year plus more to help automakers with their research
on hydrogen power. General Motors (GM) is also on the fuel cell spree, and is coming out with a new car, the AUTOnomy.
The first fuel cell, tested in 1839, was very important and even improved versions helped power the Apollo spacecraft
in its flights during the sixties and seventies, and now it’s making a comeback. The AUTOnomy runs on mostly hydrogen
and is being tinkered with so it will generate more energy than it uses. AUTOnomy’s engine is wet on the inside, so it
could freeze or not start in cold weather. This car should be finished in less than a decade and should cost less than the
price tag of a car today, though at the rate GM is moving, it currently costs more than a car today, and by a lot. It is
also very delicate and cannot handle bumpy roads. To make it, GM needs expensive and rare metals like platinum, but
they are trying to replace those parts with plastic ones. The hydrogen will also difficult to store; after all, it is
extremely flammable and very dangerous. The oil companies may also disagree with the production of this car because
if everyone’s car is running on hydrogen fuel cells, who needs oil? However, perhaps the oil manufacturers will be the
ones to come up with a plentiful supply of hydrogen due to a process of removing hydrogen from water, leaving the
oxygen, and maybe they’ll get even more business from such a breakthrough. Another problem is the stations for the
hydrogen, nobody wants to build them until people start buying and driving them, and nobody wants to buy a car that
they won’t be able to refuel, creating the chicken versus egg scenario. The AUTOnomy is also being equipped to
transfer power it generates to your house, and the hydrogen is renewable and there is an unlimited supply. What the
car will exert is nonpolluting gases, which is good for the environment. A Mr. Christopher Borroni-Bird was hired at GM
to help the fuel cell people who weren’t paying attention to the design and the designers weren’t paying attention to fuel
cells. After he decided to put the fuel cells on the bottom of the car, under the floor, he came up with a blueprint that
seemed to be a giant skateboard. His ideas would have pushed aside if it weren’t for Lawrence Burns, GM’s vice
president. Mr. Burns say that his design wasn’t just a piece of paper with lines on it; it was ready to be manufactured.
The car is also going to last 20 years. Fuel cells, says Burns, are “the biggest item on our budget by several orders of
magnitude…bigger by a long shot than improving the internal combustion engine.” That is all about “GM’s Billion Dollar
Bet.”
Importance
The car presented in the article is very important for many reasons. First, the AUTOnomy runs on hydrogen fuel
cells. Although fuel cells were introduced a while ago, only now have designers seriously considered using them in a car.
Maybe when we get the hang of making the fuel cells we could use them in different things, like communication devices,
spacecraft, and educational purposes. Fuel cells are very important because they make everyone happy. They don’t
pollute the air and help save energy, making environmentalists happy. The price of hydrogen, once an easy and quick
process is found for getting more hydrogen, may also go down, making consumers happy. Another thing to make the
buyers happy is the long life the AUTOnomy is suppose to have a long life: if the car really does last twenty years, since
the power is renewable and the unlimited supply of hydrogen, then consumers won’t have to buy a new car every ten
years or so. The government may be happy when everyone owns an AUTOnomy because then our country will not have to
depend so much on foreign oil. Speaking of oil, the oil companies here will lose business if they don’t try to have a steady
supply of hydrogen for themselves that they can sell, possibly making even more business than before. Though the fuel
cells are the most expensive thing that General Motors buys, the GM representatives say the car should cost less than
cars today. The AUTOnomy, when finished, should also be able to “plug into” your house and you can use the electricity
from the cells in your car. Finally, if it will cost less to make the cars, then the extra money can be spent on other
things, such as education and the military. Better schools could be built, more teachers could be recruited to teach at
those schools, and better materials could be bought for the school so students could receive a more accurate education
with fresh new books and computers. As well as the school could be improved upon, so could the student body. If there
is extra money for the schools then parents might have to pay less for their child’s education and perhaps more children
could attend the schools and there would be not so many untaught in our country. Maybe even more money could go out
to charities, and poverty would diminish in the United States. Perhaps the military needs better helicopters or airplanes
or guns or uniforms, and then some money could go to the needs of the military. That is how important the AUTOnomy
will be as an addition to the industrial world. That is why the car is important.
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