Page 155 - Automotive Engineering Powertrain Chassis System and Vehicle Body

CH AP TER 6 .1 Battery/fuel-cell EV design packages

Fig. 6.1-11 Lucas electric and hybrid drive vehicles: (a) GM Griffon; (b) terminal volts per 6 V module and discharge current in amps;
(c) Lucas Chloride hybrid car; (d) bi-mode drive system.

are capable of operating on a wide variety of fuels and are made by the Shell Oil Company as long ago as 1964. The
considered to produce a very low level of pollutants, but unit was installed in the world’s first fuel-cell powered car.
with one or two exceptions, such as Volvo and Chrysler, Shell also produced a 300 W nett cell in 1965 which
these claims have not been subjected to any extensive converted methanol directly into electricity, so it is not the
field testing. If what is claimed proves to be true, then case that this technology is new. The principal problem at
such vehicles would be expected to play a large part in the time this work was carried out was the cost of the unit.
the transport scene in the new millennium. Although a number of fuel-cell powered cars have been
At present, the great hope for the future, he believes, is built recently by automobile manufacturers, the only ve-
the fuel cell. Hydrogen is the preferred fuel for fuel cells hicle so far offered for sale is the Zevco London taxi which
but its storage presents a problem. One of the ways of was launched in London in July 1998. The propulsion
overcoming this problem is to convert a liquid fuel, such as systemisa hybridarrangement: abattery drivesthevehicle
methanol, into hydrogen. This was done in the 5 kW unit and is recharged by a 5 kW fuel cell. The vehicle uses

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