Fuel-cell car crosses North America

WASHINGTON, June 4 (UPI) -- Fuel-cell vehicle technology reached a durability and ruggedness landmark Tuesday as a car, running solely on electric current generated by the combination of hydrogen and oxygen, finished a cross-country trek at the Capitol lawn.

The car, a team project led by DamilerChrysler, left San Francisco on May 20 and completed the 3,000-mile trip 300 miles at a time between fill-ups on methanol, a hydrogen-bearing alcohol. Ferdinand Panik, head of the company's fuel cell product group, told United Press International the original fuel-cell system made it through the entire voyage with no need to replace anything, even at 10,000-foot altitudes in the Rocky Mountains.

"We put away all the doubts and trusted our technology," Panik said at a news conference. "It runs much, much better than we believed. It's a big step for a new technology."

A fuel cell works by drawing off spare electrons during the chemical reaction that creates water. The technology has provided electrical power on manned spacecraft for decades, but the concept has only recently been made inexpensive enough to consider as a vehicle propulsion source.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., a leading proponent of alternative-fuel vehicles, was among lawmakers cheering the car as it arrived at the Capitol. U.S. dependence on imported oil will drop dramatically once fuel-cell vehicles and similar technology are adopted, he said.

"It's worth doing for our air, for our energy independence," Levin told reporters. "It's a long road, but together, industry working with government as partners, we can get to that greener future."

The ongoing energy bill debate includes fuel-cell provisions, said Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, another supporter of the technology. The Senate version of the bill would provide up to $4,000 in income tax credits for those who buy a fuel-cell car, he said, and the government would have to buy more cars and trucks with similar technology by 2005.

"If not my children, for sure my grandchildren are going to be using alternative-fuel-powered vehicles," Voinovich said.

A major challenge in brining such visions to fruition is creating a nationwide network of hydrogen fueling stations. DamilerChrysler's Panik, who also serves as the outgoing chairman of the California Fuel Cell Partnership, said the state is leading efforts to start such a network. The San Francisco and Los Angeles areas will see several stations built in the 2003-04 timeframe, he said, followed by select other states in 2006-7 and wider availability by 2010.

The trip was timed to coincide with the anniversary of two other groundbreaking achievements -- the 75th anniversary of Charles Lindbergh's trans-Atlantic flight in 1927 and the first transcontinental automobile trip in 1903 by H. Nelson Jackson and Newall Crocker. That trip, more than 5,000 miles in a one-cylinder, 20-horsepower Winton touring car, took 63 days at an average speed of just under 4 mph.

(Editors: UPI photos #WAP2002060413, WAP2002060414, WAP2002060415, WAP2002060416, WAP2002060417, WAP2002060418 and WAP20020604 available)