According to a new report coming out of the Autoweek.com news team, big time auto car companies: Honda Motors and General Motors are set to combine their forces to deliver up the next generation hydrogen fuel cell stacks. It's reported that they're going to throw a whopping $85 million dollars into this project, and that production will take place at a factory that's located somewhere in Michigan. Actually, it's going to be GM's plant that's located in Township, Michigan. Additionally, this very expensive project is expected to bring 100 new jobs to the area.
They could provide more efficiency
The two companies said that they do plan to deploy these next-generation hydrogen fuel cells in vehicles around the year 2020. They first made this agreement in 2013, and they believe the new cells will actually slash costs and boost the efficiency of the cars. They would actually use hydrogen as the fuel to produce electricity to power cars. They plan to use the cells in distinct cars from their separate lines.
They could replace battery packs
In addition to unleashing them together, the two companies are also engineering them together. It's reported that a combined 100 engineers are working on this project. So how do these things work, exactly? Well, they explain that the cells combine hydrogen and oxygen to generate electricity through a chemical reaction.
The only byproduct that is created through this process, is water vapor. In theory, they're claiming that this fuel cell stack could possibly replace the battery pack that is in a full-electric vehicle.
Some possible problems
They did mention a few shortcomings for the cells. They include: fuel and refueling issues, they're really expensive to manufacture, and must be assembled in an environment that's similar to that of a hospital clean room.
However, they go on to say that these systems could be sold to other car companies beyond just GM and Honda in an effort to increase the volume of them, which would , in turn, reduce the costs. They could also be used as a back-up power source for non automotive things.
They're naming it Hydrotech
The size of the fuel cell stack was actually displayed to reporters in Detroit yesterday, January 30th, 2017, and they turned out to be the same size as today’s 1.5-liter four-cylinder engine.
Charlie Freese who is the GM executive director, said that this project could result in a lower-cost system that's actually the fraction of the size and mass. General Motors has currently named the new fuel cell stack: Hydrotech. Stay tuned.
