-Here are a few other “Jolts from GM’s Past” that you may want to remember: The Vega. The GM passenger car diesels. The Citation. The Saturn. The EV-1. The Sky/Solstice sports cars. The recent pseudo-hybrid Malibu and GM trucks.

-Each name also gathered a lot of press, symbolized a revolutionary new GM Mark of Excellence, and was a promised sign that a New GM could compete on even terms with anyone on the planet. Each name proved a miserable flop, and some were arguably among the worst conceived and most disappointing cars ever built on such a large scale. Maybe they should have toned down the expectations.

-Small and economical? Consider the Cobalt. The Cavalier. The Chevette. The Cimarron. Again, the Vega and the Citation and the Saturn. Consider the GM-built Toyota-designed Corolla clone (built at the first factory that Toyota ever had to shut down). They said they could do it. GM promised us they could build a small car with the best of them, but GM showed they would do nothing of the sort. GM can build a fine muscle car, a mean truck, a marvelous bloatmobile, a reasonably OK mid-size relatively low-tech sedan, a fairly good SUV. But a small economical car? To laugh.

-Now, consider the Volt.
Each time Wall Street brings us a new Bubble, they promise us “this time it’s different.” So they say. Well, history doesn’t always repeat itself, but you’d be foolish not to listen to it. As someone who has been disappointed again and again by past GM promises and “revolutionary new” products, I’d be way cautious about standing in line to buy another such promise from GM. Why does GM again raise our expectations so high? You can talk about the supposedly fail-safe virtues of the newly engineered battery cooling system, and how plug-in hybrids could theoretically save the planet, how the new GM workers and management have finally turned the corner, how GM has wisely stewarded the taxpayer’s subsidies, etc. You can do this until the cows come home. Yes, maybe This Time It’s Different, but … be sure to save enough money to buy the extended warranty. Sorry, but I’ve believed GM too many times before. No mas.

It is legitimate to criticize GM. Where is GM’s full hybrid that rivals the Prius? Or developing the EV1 as a niche market car but instead they were too focused on building tanks. No one claims that the EV1 or the Stir-Lec II were perfect vehicles but neither were developed as market products, merely for the dazzling of politicians. Had the U.S. government backed EVs, reduced petroleum subsidies, and the Big 3 produced EVs I don’t think it is impossible for market forces to have improved upon the technology including the capacity of the battery. Example happening right now is the bottleneck in battery charges for smart phones but as more compete in this market including battery manufactures we will see unpredictable breakthroughs in this market. Possibly in a few years we will be moving to something beyond the lithium battery but you can’t predict this right now because one point in time theories are usually wrong that is if a diverse group of producers and consumers participate in the market and innovation is not squashed for market manipulation.

Water is the OUTPUT of fuel cells, not the input. Fuel cells are almost always fueled with pure hydrogen (or in a few cases with a hydrogen-containing fuel where the hydrogen can be broken off), and then the hydrogen combines in the “cell” with oxygen from the air to produce water.

Just as SPLITTING water apart into hydrogen and oxygen TAKES a lot of energy (again, Darrell is right), letting hydrogen and oxygen COMBINE to form water RELEASES a lot of energy, and that’s where the electricity from a fuel cell comes from.

I don’t know the Norwegian system you refer to, but there are remote power installations in the U.S. that use fuel cells PLUS some other renewable energy source that can’t be counted on 24/7. For instance, you can have a wind-powered remote installation — there’s lots of wind in Norway — but what happens when the wind ISN’T blowing? If you size the wind turbine to have some extra capacity, you can use the surplus power to SPLIT water into hydrogen and oxygen (that process is called “electrolysis”) — then you can store those and recombine them in a fuel cell when the wind isn’t blowing. Completely clean and completely self-contained.

Nothing happens in business until the sale is made.

“Stir-Lec II served up a top speed of 60 mph, had a range of 25 miles at 30 mph on batteries alone and could travel 150 miles at 30 mph with the charging system running (limited by a 5-gallon fuel tank).”

Even in 1969 who in this country would buy a car that could only go 25 miles at 30mph?????? I can’t imagine how far it could go at 60mph… the end of your driveway maybe?

The steam powered vehicles sound interesting…

This hydrogen fuel cell battery on wheels that GM bought from the designer works on the same principal that the Norway hydrogen fuel cell battery works on. Go on Scientific American Magazine and type in hydrogen fuel cell batteries and you will learn what is possible.