18 Sep 06
It's not very often that the boss of a car company describes his latest vehicle as a 'non-event'.
Yet that's exactly what General Motors' enigmatic product czar, Bob Lutz, called his Sequel crossover SUV - the world's first road-legal, completely drive-by-wire fuel cell vehicle - minutes before I got behind the wheel for a drive in California.
'Then again,' Lutz points out to me, 'that is the event. We decided it was time to take the FCV (Fuel Cell Vehicle) out of the realm of theoretical GM research vehicle and demonstrate that we are ready to build these cars in volume.'
The Sequel was built to prove that the company's drive to bring a working, marketable zero-emissions car by 2010 is on track.
Underpinning the Chevrolet-badged crossover vehicle - launching it under the low-cost, global Chevy brand is very much a statement of intent - is the 'skateboard' chassis first seen on the 2002 AUTOnomy concept. This ground-breaking platform is just 11" high and houses the fuel cell stack, lithium-ion batteries, DC-to-DC converter and three hydrogen storage tanks that make up GM's Gen-4 propulsion system. Together with a traction motor that drives the front wheels and a pair of in-wheel electric motors located inside each of the rear hubs, this equips the SUV with four-wheel drive, making in unique among fuel cell prototypes.
