On Saturday, I visited "The Block" in Orange for shopping and dinner and stumbled on a Ford dog and pony show for their hybrids and hydrogen fuel cell effort. It was surprisingly low key. Unfortunately I was too late to talk to anyone from Ford, but was able to pick up some information that I will pass on to you.
The main display was a Focus fuel cell hybrid and a production Escape hybrid. Leading away from that display on one of the main "streets" of the mall were more Ford vehicles. The first was a Mercury Mariner Hybrid. The other vehicles were Volvos starting with a S50 and Ford Fusion. I was surprised (or was it appalled) to listen to surprised people who thought the rest of the cars were hybrids too. I was surprised to find absolutely no trucks! All of the ca
rs (except for the Focus fuel cell) were open for people to crawl around in. This is exactly what I think is the right way for Ford to sell their cars -- let people look at them with no pressure for a sale. I do think that Ford should have had people there in the evening too to answer questions. Apparently during the day, they not only had people answering questions, but a band playing for the younger audience. I guess appropriate to that audience, the "missing in action" Ford cars were the Five Hundred and Crown Victoria.
I drove a Ford fuel cell car a few years ago in downtown Los Angeles and found it to be quite acceptable to drive. At the time, the Ford engineer who was my passenger kept asking me if the car was "just like" a normal car. I told him that it shouldn't be because the buyer of a car like that would want to be different. "No", he said, their marketing research told them that the car needed to be invisible (driving experience, outer appearance, and sound) to the prospective owner. I think the Toyota Prius has proven that to be wrong.
But, as before, the Focus fuel cell hybrid vehicle looked exactly like a normal Focus except for the very visible graphics on the outside of the car.
Ford engineers have decided that a hybrid is the most efficient powertrain a car can have, despite its high cost. There is just too much energy given up in braking to throw away. Also, the fuel cell can be sized a bit smaller than necessary for maximum acceleration if there are batteries to help drive the motor when power is requested by the driver. Given that the fuel cell produces electric power with zero emissions, only one motor is needed and it can perform the multiple function of driving the car, regardless of if the source is the fuel cell or the batteries. It also can be the generator to charge the batteries under braking.
As an aside, I remember talking to a very knowledgeable Ford engineer in the early 1980s when the U.S. Department of Energy was building experimental electric and hybrid cars. He told me that the hybrid would never be economical to build -- or buy -- because there were two powertrains in the car, and the powertrain was the most expensive component in the car. Technology and marketing has changed a lot since then.
Ford has chosen an 87 horsepower motor to drive the 3527 pound Focus. That may not sound like a lot (and it isn't), but an electric motor produces maximum torque at zero rpm, so it should be quite adequate in traffic. For simplicity, a single speed transaxle is selected, so the maximum speed is just over 80 miles/hour. Also, Ford selects a rather high 315 volt system. Toyota uses quite a bit less at just over 200 volts, and the Honda Civic just 144 volts. The standard Ford Escape Hybrid uses a 300 volt system.
A fuel cell is sort of like a battery. There are no moving parts. With some quite complex geometry and sophisticated materials, gaseous hydrogen (stored in a 5000 psi tank) and oxygen (from the air) are combined to form water and electricity. The "real" battery in the Focus is a nickel metal hydride unit from Sanyo. That's the standard type of battery in today's hybrids. Researchers are working on a type of lithium ion battery to replace the nickel metal hydride type. Past batteries of this type wouldn't charge quickly enough to allow regenerative braking (charging the battery when you push on the brake pedal).
Is a fuel cell powered car in your future? Probably. The technology for the car is not longer in its infancy, but is quite sophisticated now. The problem is that if you would magically get a car powered by a fuel cell, where would you get the hydrogen to power it? That infrastructure is in its infancy.
Why is a fuel cell car in your future? Have a look at the relative efficiencies of cars as quoted by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. This is the so-called "well-to-wheel" efficiency.
- 19% - gasoline only
- 21% - all-electric
- 27% - hydrogen fuel cell
- 32% - gasoline-electric hybrid
It would be reasonable to expect that a diesel-electric hybrid would a bit higher than the 32% figure for a gasoline-electric hybrid, but that a fuel cell hybrid would be higher still.
There was a little folder available to pick up titled, "Toward a Sustainable Future". It presents a very impressive picture of just how environmentally responsible a company Ford is. Of course, these days, it is the right thing to do, not only for profit, but to compete against Toyota who has painted themselves as the only car company in the world that cares about the environment. Of course this has never been true, but I would guess that the average Amer
ican thinks it is true.
Getting back to one of the other hybrid cars on display, the Mercury Mariner Hybrid was there for you to see. You very rarely indeed get to see one on the road, so this was an opportunity to see one for yourself. While I find it rather unappealing, the people I saw (and heard) around it found it quite desirable. One suggestion for Ford: at a "show" like this, have a display rack of cards from all the local dealers so a prospective customer can walk up and take one. I, for one, don't really know where my local Mercury dealer is.
