The Sequel, whose prototype was unveiled on Sunday at the American International Auto Show in Detroit, is regarded as a car unlike any other since the only thing its exhaust emits is water vapour.
The vehicle promises to transform the car industry worldwide with a direct consequence on the planet’s ecological balance.
For a company that makes the monstrous, gas-guzzling and obscenely masculine Hummer, the Sequel is considered an attempt to change the image of an auto company producing some of the least fuel-efficient cars.
But environmental groups are not buying GM’s spin saying the company has no real plans to address the problem of fuel-efficiency in the immediate future.
GM had earlier introduced other hydrogen-fuelled cars such as the Hy-wire. The company says it will be able to mass produce fuel cell cars by 2010.
"The technologies embodied in Sequel, such as fuel cells, by-wire and wheel hub motors, have developed so fast that GM has been able to double the range and halve the 0-60 mph acceleration time, compared to current fuel cell vehicles, in less than three years," according to Larry Burns, GM vice president of research and development and planning.
"Three years ago, our chairman and CEO, Rick Wagoner, challenged us to completely rethink the automobile," Burns said. "The Autonomy and Hy-wire concepts were the outgrowth of that challenge – a revolution in how vehicles would be designed, built and used in the future. But they were concepts. Today, with Sequel, the vision is real – not yet affordable, but do-able."
Simply put hydrogen fuel cell cars use cells that separate hydrogen atoms into electrons and protons, using the electrons to generate a current. All that it emits are hydrogen protons that combine with the oxygen in the air to produce water rather than dangerous pollutants released by the gasoline-powered cars.
Although fuel cells have been around for more than a century, the problem has been scalability. Till recently, carmakers were not able to put them under the hood of a passenger car since it required a much larger room.
"Sequel embodies GM’s vision of reinventing the automobile with a fusion of technologies that includes advanced materials, electronic controls, computer software and advanced propulsion," the company said in a press release.
"GM’s goal," Burns explained, "is to design and validate a fuel cell propulsion system by 2010 that is competitive with current internal combustion systems on durability and performance, and that ultimately can be built at scale affordably."
"We’ve achieved remarkable gains in range and acceleration by using our fuel cell system technology that exists today," Burns said. "That’s a real breakthrough. For anyone tracking the viability of fuel cell vehicles, this is encouraging news."
Sequel, about the size of a Cadillac SRX, travels up to 480 km on its hydrogen supply, and accelerates to 60 mph in less than 10 seconds. Current-generation fuel cell vehicles have a range of between 170 and 250 miles and cover 0-60 mph in between 12-16 seconds, depending upon whether a battery is used.