Chevy Equinox

GM Chevy Equinox Fuel Cell SUV

GM’s Chevy Equinox Fuel Cell SUV, all 100 of them, are supposed to rollout in the U. S. the first quarter of 2008. The deployment plan is being called “Project Driveway” and the idea behind GM’s rollout is to test the marketability, including customer response to hydrogen cars in general and the Equinox Fuel Cell in specific.


Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell SUV

The Chevy Equinox Fuel Cell SUVs will be rolled out in California, Metropolitan New York and Washington DC. Currently, California has 23 hydrogen fueling stations, New York has 2 and Washington DC has 1 station. As such, the distribution of vehicles may be weighted more towards California, which has a larger hydrogen support system already in place that the other two regions.

According to GM Vice President Larry Burns, “General Motors is demonstrating its commitment to hydrogen fuel cells as the answer for taking the automobile out of the environmental debate and reducing our dependence on petroleum. The Equinox Fuel Cell is powered by GM’s most advanced fuel cell propulsion system to date, and demonstrates an important milestone on our pathway to automotive-competitive fuel cell propulsion technology development.”

The Chevy Equinox Fuel Cell contains General Motor’s fourth generation fuel cell propulsion system including a 93 kw fuel cell, 73 kw front-wheel drive 3-phase asynchronous electric motor and 35 kw nickel metal hydride battery pack. The Equinox Fuel Cell uses 3 carbon fiber fuel tanks, pressurized to 10,000 psi and has a range of 200 miles before refueling. With a top speed of 100 mph, the Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell accelerates from 0 – 60 mph in 12 seconds. The 5-door, 4-seat vehicle is expected to meet all 2007 U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.

The fuel cell is being manufactured to start in temperatures from -13 to +113F so those cold New York winters or hot summers in the California deserts should not be a problem. Some of the other features of the Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell include OnStar with Turn-by-Turn Navigation (for finding the sparse hydrogen stations), heated seats; keyless entry, passenger frontal and roof rail side-impact air bags and StabiliTrak.

The fuel cell is being manufactured with an expected life of only 50,000 miles so most likely the vehicle will be leased instead of sold or else some other arrangement will be worked out with those picked to drive the vehicle. General Motors of Canada in Oshawa, Ontario will produce the 100 Equinox Fuel Cell SUVs to be sold, leased or otherwise distributed in the U. S.

The test marketing of the Chevy Equinox Fuel Cell will serve as a learning tool for General Motors and other hydrogen car manufacturers to see if the public is indeed ready to accept fuel cell vehicle technology into their lives.

In March 2010, GM announced that it is introducing its new production intent fuel cell system for the Chevy Equinox Fuel Cell. This new fuel cell system is 220 lbs. lighter than the old system and uses 1/3 less platinum.

 

4 comments on “Chevy Equinox

  1. Dear Kevin,

    I knew those GMC Effers would stop the Equinox hfc as soon as they got their slimmy fingers on the Gov’t GMC bailout money. They just completely dropped the Equinox HFC out of their website!

    Those Effing GMC SOBs should be heavily scolded by you Kevin Kantola!!!

    You should feature them on your website as traitors to americans who’ve been waiting for 5 years!

    How could they drop it after blabbing about it for so many car shows? Effing bastards!!

    Now I’m trying to get a Hyundai Tucson FCEV or The NeverToArrive Honda Clarity HFC.

    Is there any hope, really any hope at all? And will gasoline stations get the hint?

  2. Hello Jacques, not to worry as GM is still plugging away at fuel cell vehicles though their efforts have been a bit “under the radar”. In 2013 they consolidated their Honeoye Falls, N.Y facility into their Global Powertrain Engineering Headquarters in Pontiac, Michigan and their Opel Hydrogen4 is still racking up miles in Europe. The Equinox Fuel Cell achieved 100,000 miles in testing as of 2013.

    http://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/home.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2013/Oct/1022-fc-equinox.html

    http://media.opel.com/media/intl/en/opel/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/intl/en/2014/opel/05-23-fuel-cell-fleet.html

    http://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2013/Jan/0130-powertrain.html

  3. Hi Kevin,
    Thanks tons for replying so quickly!
    Well good to hear…But I’m not holding my breath any longer, because I need a H FC SUV now, as I’m getting ready to go back to work after a long (15 years) absence due to illness. I’m fine now. But carless.

    I must get some sort of LosAngeles transportation, and due to my work it cannot be the bus!

    Looks like I’ll have to buy a gasoline guzzler since none of the empty promisers are not actually releasing any thing unless it it is in some tiny zip code area, that no one lives in.

    Isn’t there any way I could get on a waiting list of some sort? I’m dying out here…

  4. Hi Jacques, if you’re in Los Angeles then you may have a decent chance to lease and HFC SUV right now (or buy a sedan).

    Here is a H2 station map of California – http://cafcp.org/stationmap

    Hyundai is leasing now – https://www.hyundaiusa.com/tucsonfuelcell/index.aspx

    Toyota is leasing and selling now – https://ssl.toyota.com/mirai/fcv.html

    Honda also has a sedan available in late 2016 – http://automobiles.honda.com/clarity/

    I hope this helps!

    Kevin

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