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Around The World In A Fuel Cell Car
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Here's one of three Mercedes-Benz hydrogen fuel cell cars that had so far made it about 20,000 kilometres since starting out in Germany at the end of January. They drove across Europe, flew to Florida, covered U.S.A. and up to Vancouver, flew to Australia and drove across it, flew to Shanghai drove up here to northern China and now it's my turn. They're trying to prove that fuel cell cars aren't experimental anymore and that they can deal with real world conditions. Let's see.
Michael Vaughan
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I joined in behind the traffic here in Lanzhou - it's a city I'd never heard of but it has a larger population than Toronto. I could easily zoom past these buses or most anything belse on the road because fuel cells produce electricity and the electric motor in the cars has lots of torque for terrific acceleration.
Michael Vaughan
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I drove about 800 kilometres in total and outside of the cities it was mostly through desert like this. This part of China had been poverty stricken until China changed its economic policies and went capitalist. Now there are highways and high speed rail lines and jobs for the millions and millions of people who live up here. Where the highway was under construction it was unbelievable rough - but the little cars held up.
Michael Vaughan
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Daimler says these fuel cell cars have a range of 400 kilometres before they need to be filled up with hydrogen again. We filled up more often than that. The problem was of course that there are exactly zero hydrogen filling stations out here - or in most other places for that matter. So Daimler had to bring its own filling station around the world with cars.
Michael Vaughan
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A fuel cell converts hydrogen in the presence of oxygen into electrical energy while leaving only pure water as an emission. This black truck is the pumper and it pumps hydrogen into the tanks that are under the floor of the car which is Mercedes-Benz B Class. It takes about 15 minutes, but a "real" hydrogen filling station would only need 3 minutes.
Michael Vaughan
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This big transport truck carries the hydrogen. Hydrogen is the most common element on the planet - it's found in both air and water. It's expected that hydrogen will be produced where it's used in future which is a much better idea than having a transport truck follow you around the world.
Michael Vaughan
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After two days and about 1000 kilometres of driving, we ended up here - no, it's not Disneyland, it's the "new" city of Jiayuguan. This is the entrance to a huge park where world Triathlon events have been held.
Michael Vaughan
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This is the kind of building that is going on all over China. People are getting modern housing for the first time and they show a very positive and optimistic spirit.
Michael Vaughan
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The modern part of Jiayuguan is all less than ten years old and it has more amenities and style than any of the older developments I saw.
Michael Vaughan
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This is the hotel and as you can see it's not too shabby at all. China is promoting itself as a tourist destination although I don't think many tourists would make it up this far north.
Michael Vaughan
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There was one more thing to see and you can see it in many places across several thousand kilometres of China. It is, of course, the Great Wall. Here's a section of it not far from the hotel.
Michael Vaughan
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A day earlier we had driven along a highway that paralleled a section of the wall for about 50 kilometres. That section had eroded down to just a long pile of mud. This section has been rebuilt.
Michael Vaughan
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The purpose of the trip was to show that fuel cells are a mature technology suitable for everyday use in comfortable, safe vehicles. I came away convinced. Mercedes has built about 200 of these cars so far and says by 2013 they will have the next generation available in the thousands at the same price as a diesel hybrid car.
Michael Vaughan
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