BAR fight!

I shared earlier that there are two prevailing "pressures" at which the hydrogen we use in our fuel cell cars are delivered at and stored in our tanks.  350 BAR (barometric) or 5,000 PSI (pounds per square inch) and the higher 700 BAR or 10,000 PSI.  The Mercedes Benz F-Cell uses the higher 700 BAR pressure, as do most of the other cars I have seen at the Torrance Shell station, including prototype experimental cars from Toyota, Hyundai and GM.  It appears that most of the newer technologies are all going with 700, the rationale being that you can cram in twice the amount of energy as 350 BAR into the same amount of space.  The only car I regularly see at the 350 BAR side of the station are the FCX Clarity from Honda.  And I'm not quite sure if that's because the Honda is using older technology, or if it's because Honda has always been kinda quirky and weird sometimes, engineering cars to impress no one but their own engineers it seems (like insisting on bringing - unsuccessfully - a front wheel drive V6 luxury sedan to a rear wheel drive V8 fight; or bringing a unibody car based pickup - unsuccessfully - to a body on frame real truck fight; or bringing a sporty on-road luxury crossover with no rear passenger room or cargo space - unsuccessfully - to a fight that didn't even exist; the list goes on).  But I digress...

Either way, in order for the hydrogen infrastructure to work, there will eventually need to be some uniformity in the delivery pressures to simplify the needed equipment on a mass level, and it seems likely that 350 BAR will go away as yet another stepping stone in the technological staircase, like the record player, the rotary dial phone, the Atari 2600 and HP tablet... what? too soon?

Until then, the 350 BAR does serve one purpose to us 700 BAR types, and that's as a backup to when the 700 machines go down.  I experienced this recently at the Torrance Shell station, where the 700 dispensers were both acting up and were not dispensing H2.  Of course, I pull into the station on vapors and the biggest issue with the hydrogen infrastructure came clearly into sight: you can't just drive a block over and go to another H2 station.  In a pinch, a car requiring 700 BAR can use the 350 BAR hoses.  It connects up without problem and dispenses H2, with one small catch: it will only fill half the tank.  Because the pressure is pumping in at half the pressure, it will only be able to hold half the energy or total amount of H2.  And while it might not give you the full range, it sure beats pushing an electric car home. 

Here is the normal 700 BAR nozzle which looks a lot more like a normal gasoline nozzle. These newer 700 BAR nozzles incorporate an infrared signal which will not allow a 350 BAR car to be accidentally filled with the higher pressure. That's because the tanks would presumably blow up and that would ruin one's day.   

EV Mooch - Parking for Free

I have heard some rumors about electric cars being able to park for free in certain areas, and based on some quick and dirty google searching, I've been able to confirm two of these bits of useful information. 

In addition to already being able to drive in the carpool lane by myself, the city of Santa Monica and LAX offer free parking to electric cars:

Santa Monica (Soviet Monica as I usually refer to them for their borderline socialist leanings) allows electric cars with WHITE clean air stickers (sorry silly Prius) to park for free at city meters for the maximum permitted time of that space:  city of santa monica website

LAX allows electric cars to park in parking structure #1 and #6 for up to 30 DAYS!!!!  I'm not quite sure exactly how they determine what is and isn't an Electric Car, but seeing how a Chevy Volt, which doesn't qualify for the Carpool lane and sucks down normal dinosaur gasoline qualifies, I can't imagine why the hydrogen using yet zero emission F-Cell wouldn't:  lax parking page

I also read the City of Hermosa Beach also offers free parking at their meters, but I have not been able to find any official statement showing this.

The cities of San Jose and Sacramento also permit free parking in municipal lots but at this present time, there isn't a hydrogen infrastructure in place that would permit me to drive up there without towing the car from Los Angeles. 

Zero Emission Dictatorship

It appears that Colonel Gaddafi and I have something in common; we are both fans of electric cars.  It's being reported that the Colonel owned a specially converted Fiat 500, that included not only physical modifications with an open cockpit, allowing for African Sahara wind and screams of dissidents in your hair driving, but also was modified with an electric motor and a bunch of batteries to run emissions free.  Even dictators care about the environment and look to alternative forms of energy to continue their iron fist rule.  While the Colonel (I keep thinking Sanders whenever I say that) is no where to be seen, his electric Fiat 500 was paraded through the street of Tripoli yesterday by militant rebels who overtook his compound.  Save the women and children... and the electric cars!

Newbie B

Here's my next car, not out of choice per say, but because this is presumably what the next B-Class F-Cell car will look like when they debut it in 2014.  The all new B-Class will be shown at the Frankfurt Motor Show next month, and by all appearances, it looks to be a very "evolutionary" design.  Other than the boomerang character line that runs down the side, it's a very similar shape to the current B.  The interior is admittedly much more dynamic than the current boring interior.

Overall they've made many enhancements to the details, including headlights and tail lights and freshened the shape somewhat, and it certainly makes my brand new B-Class F-Cell look like yesterday's ham sandwich!

Holiday Romance

I've been out of town for the last week or so, meaning I left my F-Cell behind in Los Angeles and flew into Reagan National in Washington DC.  In addition to the nation's capital, I also visited New York City and got there by way of driving up four hours from DC.  In addition to myself, I had three other work associates to schlep around, as well as all of our gear.  So a small car wasn't going to cut it from a practical standpoint.  I had to think bigger and the nice folks at Dollar Rent a Car provided me with a solution:
 

The Chevrolet Suburban is the antithesis of the pragmatic F-Cell.  It's big and spacious and commanding and hungry and unapologetic and larger than life.  Yet at the same time, the burb is understated and capable and strong.  If  Marlon Brando (in his older years) were a car, he'd be a Chevrolet Suburban.

And there's more to like of this big SUV behind the wheel.  The view from the driver's seat is commanding, with great visibility all around.  Big dumbo ear side mirrors means you can see everything left and right and a comfortable 'dining room chair' height sitting position. Wide bench rear seats were spacious enough for three across, with a third row seating option which still allowed for a significant amount of luggage room behind it.  All in all, short of a minivan, there really isn't much of a choice when it comes to a family truckster that can carry it all.  Unlike the motherly minivan, however, the Suburban can do it with rugged manly style.

So why was I having this holiday fling with the enemy?  A vehicle that symbolized all that was wrong with American consumers and guzzled down ridiculous amounts of foreign based fossil fuels.  A relic of the period of excess where we didn't think about tomorrow and only looked to the over leveraged, 5 year adjustable no money down world of yesterday?  Why was I loving life in a Chevrolet Suburban?  Because it served a purpose, and if that purpose was needed, there was nothing else like it.


Most American households own two cars, one for the father and one for the mother, and they buy cars based on the overall compromise of all around usefulness, trying to get the very most out of the car based on all the laundry lists of needs they need from their personal conveyances.  If you had a big family and hauled around sports gear or backpacks and occasionally towed a boat or trailer, the Suburban was the obvious choice.  The problem was, I wager the average Suburban owner only needed the Burb's capabilities less than 30% oft the time he or she was actually behind the wheel.  And when they weren't hauling or towing, they had to carry around the lumbering monstrosity with them everywhere we went. 

I'm going to argue that we can't really fault people for owning Suburbans if they actually use them, and despite the fact that I'm an advocate for alternative fuels and clean energy, I respect and as a matter of fact, enjoy driving cars like the Suburban for practical purposes.  There's a time and place for everything, and while perhaps many of us can compromise and make due with something like a Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle for their normal daily commutes, there are others of us who cannot and need the sheer size and abilities of the Suburban.

Silence is Golden

I'd like to chime in on a topic that is gaining momentum in the courts of public opinion, and that's the notion that electric cars are too quiet and should be required to produce noise while operating.  I personally have had four instances of pedestrians or cyclists not hearing me on the street or in a parking lot.  And let me point out, THREE of those instances were pedestrians on cell phones and were so involved in their respective conversations, they failed to notice a big blob of metal, plastic and glass heading towards them.  The fourth instance was a long haired idiot on a bicycle wearing HEADPHONES!  None of these instances, I believe, were the result of any lack of noise of my F-Cell and completely that of people not paying attention to the task at hand, be it walking or bicycling.



Now I'm not going to suggest that all instances of car versus pedestrian near misses/not misses are because the ped wasn't paying attention, nor am I going to suggest that having some noise generated at low speeds would be a bad thing on electric cars.  But I believe pedestrians must also be held accountable for looking where they're going, in the same way pedestrians need to look out for nearly silent bicyclists who could also run into them.  In fact, I wager there are more injuries from bicycle/pedestrian collisions than from electric car/pedestrian collisions in any given city at any given time.  And yet, I hear no calls for legislation requiring for bicycles to generate noise like a food blender while in motion. 

As a driver of an electric car who faces these challenges every day, I disagree in requiring an audible noise to be generated AT ALL TIMES from an electric car.  But similar to a bicycle chime bell, perhaps there is a mild sound generating "horn" that can be installed to all electric cars that allow the drivers to activate a noise AS NEEDED, and activate voluntarily, like in a parking lot or while creeping along in a residential area.  Something milder than an actual horn, but more than just the faint electric motor current noise that may not be sufficient to stand out to those not paying attention.

As with all new technologies, I believe there will be teething as society learns to cope with them, and electric cars are no different.  

Going the distance for reliability

Seen today at the Torrance Hydrogen station.  A Hyundai Fuel Cell car based on their Tuscan SUV. 

Talking briefly with the guys who had trailered this up to Torrance, they came all the way up here instead of UC Irvine, which I'd imagine is closer to Hyundai's Fountain Valley headquarters, because the Torrance station pumps faster and is more reliable.  No arguing there. 

I had my first hydrogen refueling experience at the UC Irvine station and we had arrived just after a Toyota Highlander fuel cell had finished filling up.  Meaning there wasn't enough pressure built up and there wasn't enough refrigerant to cool down the hydrogen to keep pumping.  We had to stand around and wait about 30 minutes before the system would let us fill up.  Because of this, I haven't bothered to ask for an account to use UC Irvine and I will wait for the new Shell station in Newport Beach to open, which hopefully will be much more efficient. 

To B, or not to B.

The B-Class body is new to most Americans.  We haven't gotten them here because we were too busy being leveraged and buying S63's and G55's.  However, our gun-less, not as affluent friends in the great white north of Canada have been driving around in B-Class cars for a couple years now.  See, Canadians just don't make as much money as Americans, or maybe it's that they don't borrow as much.  Either way, most car companies can't sell the expensive cars up there, and that's why little cars like the Mazda 3 sell so well in Canada, as opposed the US where we're busy trolling down our interstates in Ford F-150's.  And the same holds true for Mercedes Benz.  Now I understand with our new found frugality and debt ceilings for the average American these days, Mercedes has reconsidered and will in fact be importing the new B-Class that will be shown next month at the Frankfurt Motor Show.  Until then, it's just eight of us in these F-Cells that are built on the B-Class body, and anyone who's moved down here from Canada.

Just to give you a size comparison, here's a picture of my B-Class F-Cell next to a dreadful current generation Prius.  I can spout off dimensions all day but seeing them side by side tells the bigger story.  The length is about the same and so is the width, but you can see the B-Class sits much taller. This gives you a sense of the commanding view of the road you get in this car.  Even if it weren't a fuel cell powertrain, I think the B-Class is a fantastic car.  In fact, I had the displeasure of driving a C300 loaner car while the F-Cell was in for service a few weeks ago and I couldn't wait to get the F-Cell back.  It's just a much more interesting car to drive, and is easier to see out of and navigate around and more practical and better to haul people and things and on and on. 

For those who have to have the image will continue to lease those $399/month C300's, and god knows there are a ton of you here in LA.  For the rest of us who could care less and just want a nice, comfortable and practical Mercedes, I can't recommend the B-Class enough.  Yes, it might not have all the bells and whistles of an E-Class, and it certainly doesn't have the presence of a S-Class at the yacht club, but if you're out to impress no one but yourself, I'd say have a go at a B.

Home, Home on the Range

So how far can you go on a single tank of hydrogen in the F-Cell.  It seems to depend up on who you ask.  Mercedes is stating 249 miles.  I bet you could, if you were going all downhill, with an 18-wheeler in front of you drafting the air while you drove no more than 50 mph with a raw egg sandwiched in between your shoe and the accelerator pedal. 

For the rest of us in reality land, where we accelerate and brake, where idiots in slow moving Priuses cut us off and douchebags in M3's tailgate us in commuter traffic, you can expect an honest to goodness 184 miles maximum.  OK, i had 0.2kg's of hydrogen left in my tank, so maybe i could have squeezed another three miles at highway speeds. But that's pretty darn close to empty.  The fuel light was illuminated, i had a low fuel warning symbol and towards the end, i even got some illustration of a F-Cell connected to a fuel pump visually telling me to fill up, as if the other lights and dings and indicators weren't enough. 

Safely, i'd say you get 150 honest to goodness miles out of the car.  You'd still be more than 1/4 of a tank and without any lights on the dash.  The average gasoline car gets around 250-300 miles.  So while it isn't what you'd call long distance, it's certainly further than most other electric cars on the market.  And let's not forget that you can 'fully recharge' full of hydrogen in about 10 minutes. 

Refueling Stations versus Plugging into a Wall

The biggest issue we all know with plug in electric cars historically has been, they have limited range, they're slow and they take forever to recharge.  Some of this holds true and the only true electric car available in any real numbers today is the Nissan Leaf.  Don't be fooled for a second over the hooplah surrounding the Chevy Volt.  Yes, it's a very advanced, next generation hybrid, but it's still a hybrid.  Electric cars don't burn gasoline, even if it is to power an on-board generator that recharges the battery.  But I digress.

I have read that realistically, the Nissan Leaf is good for about 60 miles of real world highway driving, and driving like a normal human who floors it to merge onto freeways and doesn't drive like a grandma who just crapped in her depends.  And that's probably good for most commuters on a set schedule where you can recharge it once a day, probably in the evenings when you get home.  But the problem is, it takes at least 8 hours on a 240 volt industrial line, and upwards of 18 hours to fully charge a Leaf using a standard 110 volt household outlet.  18 hours is a long time to sit idle.  Even UAW workers would say that's too long of a coffee break. 

The Mercedes F-Cell "recharges" using compressed hydrogen.  You pull up to a station like the one pictured above in Torrance, California, one of the newest and most advanced of the hydrogen stations.  After connecting the nozzle like you would a regular gasoline car, you pump hydrogen from empty to full maybe in about 10 minutes, depending upon the station.  That's a bit longer than filling up an average mid sized sedan full of dino juice, but it's certainly faster than charging for 18 hours! 

We still lack hydrogen fuel stations on every street corner, but I argue that with a little planning, one can live a routine life more normally with a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle than a rechargeable electric car.

Running Footage; nuthin to do with joggers

Here is a quick video compiled of just the F-Cell driving around in random places.  It also shows a quick demo of how easy it is to refuel. This is just a test video of our equipment and editing skills so any comments on how this video is boring and needs more work will only be met with complete agreement ;)