What is Project Driveway and What’s on the Horizon for Fuel Cell Vehicles?

According to the title, this blog post is about fuel cell vehicles.  Not sure what they are?  Ok.  Fine, then let’s start with a conversational detour.

Ever wish someone would walk up to you and hand you the keys to a new vehicle? The closest I’ve ever come to hearing about something like this, I previously mentioned when I wrote the anecdote about Doug in our Field of Dreams blog post last year. There’s also that scene from Pay it Forward, where some guy hands Jay Mohr the keys to his new Jaguar S-Type car in an effort to … you guessed it … pay it forward. I was looking at GM’s Project Driveway a little today and I checked it out to see if I might qualify to drive a new state-of-the-art Chevy Equinox fuel cell vehicle.

Project Driveway is the first large-scale market test of fuel cell vehicles with real drivers in the real world. Because hydrogen fuel cells use zero gasoline and produce zero emissions other than water vapor, they’re definitely much better for our environment in the long run. And GM is betting big bucks that they will be an important part of our future.

The Equinox Fuel Cell SUV has an electric motor traction system that provides the vehicle with smooth acceleration with the ability to reach a top speed of 100 mph. So a lack of power will not be an issue when driving a fuel cell vehicle, but how do you put fuel in it???  I know that I’m not interested in lugging around big hydrogen tanks! 

Check out this video to see where GM plans to go to get to the next level of making fuel cell vehicles.

It’s exciting to see what’s on the horizon in terms of technology and possibilities. I know that the auto makers have put a lot of time and money into making these fuel cell vehicles safe for drivers, passengers, and pedestrians. And please don’t post any comments related to the Hindenburg. My dad will be 70 years old in August and the Hindenburg event took place 2 years before he was born. A lot has happened in the seventy-two years since then just in case you blinked. I wouldn’t hesitate to try out a fuel cell vehicle. And if someone out there wants to hand me the keys to one to let me drive it for free for a couple months … let’s just say I’m open to that possibility.

I’ll leave you with this link to Kip’s “Technology” wedding serenade to Lafawnduh from Napoleon Dynamite. Either you loved this movie or you hated it — whatever the case, this scene still cracks me up every time I see it.

I love technology.