Green Technologies: Electric Cars with Hydrogen Fuel Cells
| Author | Sylvie Castonguay |
| Position | WIPO Magazine Editorial Staff, Communications and Public Outreach Division |
Two hundred years ago, Swiss engineer François Isaac de Rivaz invented an internal combustion engine that used a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen as fuel. But the car he designed to go with it was a failure. The first electric cars were invented some 25 years later, long before Messrs. Daimler, inventor of the modern gas engine in 1885, and Benz, recipient of patent DRP 37435 for a gas-fueled car in 1886, came along.
At the turn of 20th Century electric cars were more popular than gasoline-powered models, for much the same reasons that consumers are taking a second look at electric cars today: they did not emit noxious fumes, were quiet, smoother and easier to drive. So why did the more-polluting gasoline-powered cars take over the market? Several factors came into play.
"I will build a car for the great multitude," declared Henry Ford in 1903. And so he did: the Model T, with an internal combustion engine that ran on gasoline, was released in 1908, selling for US$950. During its 19 years in production, its price tag would fall as low as US$280. No other car could compete - let alone electric cars, which, when at their peak in 1912, sold on average for US$1,950. The writing was on the wall.
Electric cars also lost out because of their limited range. At the turn for the century, this had not been a problem, as the only suitable roads for driving were in towns. But after the First World War, nations started to build highways and roads to connect their towns. Car owners soon wanted to venture out further than the electric cars could take them.
The discovery of plentiful crude oil resources reduced the price of petrol, making gasoline more affordable. But electric cars did not disappear - nor did the use of hydrogen as fuel. They simply faded out of the mass consciousness until the 1970s gas crisis and environmental concerns brought them back to the fore.
Today's internal combustion engines can be readily converted to run on a variety of fuels, including hydrogen. However, hydrogen fuel cells used to power cars with electric motors are two to three times more efficient than gas-fuelled internal combustion engines. Moreover, they have zero-emissions and, because they have few moving parts, are quiet and vibration-free.
Hydrogen is one of the most plentiful elements in the universe. It can be extracted from natural gas, coal, crude oil, etc., but water is the only pollution-free source of hydrogen. The hydrogen and oxygen atoms in water can be easily and cleanly split apart by electrolysis, ideally using electricity from clean sources, such as solar panels and wind turbines. The resulting...
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