Clean cars: the next generation.It's been a momentous year for cleaner vehicles (see "Getting There: A Guide to Planet-Friendly Cars," Consumer News, July/August 2004). DaimlerChrysler rolled out the first plug-in hybrid, albeit as a test vehicle, and announced it would soon import the fuel-sipping Smart city car. Several more manufacturers, including Ford, added new hybrids to their fleets. And the race to bring a fuel-cell car to market is getting hotter, as Honda and General Motors unveiled the latest versions of their hydrogen prototypes. The sleek Honda FCX The Honda FCX (presumably meaning Fuel Cell eXperimental) is a hydrogen fuel cell automobile manufactured by Honda. It is said to be entirely silent in operation. Currently there are more than 20 vehicles in the hands of customers in three different American states, can reportedly travel 350 miles on five kilograms of hydrogen. A version of the FCX FCX French Connexion (gaming site) FCX Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold Inc (stock symbol) FCX Fuel Cell Experiment (Honda) FCX Fire Coordination Exercise FCX Fire Control Exercise may be on the market in three or four years on a limited basis. GM is putting journalists behind the wheel of its Sequel, which looks like a fairly streamlined crossover SUV A crossover SUV (also called CUV for Crossover Utility Vehicle) or XUV (not to be confused with GMC's Envoy XUV) is an automobile with a sport utility vehicle appearance but is built upon a more economical and fuel-efficient unibody construction. . But driving it is like nothing else: EVs (fuel-cell cars are really electric cars) tend to be slow and plodding, but the Sequel peels out, zooming to 60 mph in only 10 seconds. The Sequel's 300-mile range is made possible by the car's six kilograms of 10,000 pounds-per-square-inch hydrogen storage
Hydrogen storage is the main technological problem of a viable hydrogen economy. Some attention has been given to the role of hydrogen to provide grid energy storage for unpredictable energy sources, like . GM will produce 100 of its also-all-new Chevy Equinox equinox (ē`kwĭnŏks), either of two points on the celestial sphere where the ecliptic and the celestial equator intersect. The vernal equinox, also known as "the first point of Aries," is the point at which the sun appears to cross the fuel-cell vehicles for testing in three cities The Three Cities is a collective description of the three fortified cities of Cospicua, Vittoriosa, and Senglea on the Island of Malta, which are enclosed by the massive line of fortification created by the Knights of St John, the Cottonera Lines. next fall. According to GM's Greg Cesul, they will offer redundant safety systems that make it very unlikely a fuel-cell car will ever catch fire, let alone explode like the Hindenburg. CONTACT: Ecology Center Auto Project, (734)761-3186, www.ecocenter.org/auto.shtml. |
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