Chev Colorado Fuel Cell for Military

[Industrial Toys]

Interesting.

Is the Chevy Colorado ZH2 the new Humvee? - YouTube


I thought they said there was a "Power Take Off" on the rear. Great I thought, run your bushhog!

I found a Colorado was small just for me.

 

[MossRoad]

25KW continuous generator with 50KW peak. That's pretty good. Run your house in a power outage. No infrastructure for hydrogen yet, though, but who knows what the future will bring? Love to see new tech developed.

 

[mddorange]

I remember years back when the military was given 100 Chevy Volts to test. Within a month everyone was yelling to "get rid of this junk" and give us a REAL vehicle.

 

[Tractor Seabee]

Sure will need a lot of up-armoring. Wonder how it will perform after adding all the weight (2 tons).

Ron

 

[MossRoad]

Sure will need a lot of up-armoring. Wonder how it will perform after adding all the weight (2 tons).

Ron

If you watched the video, they said they were testing just the fuel cell technology with no intention of up-armoring it.

 

[herm0016]

I remember years back when the military was given 100 Chevy Volts to test. Within a month everyone was yelling to "get rid of this junk" and give us a REAL vehicle.

FUNNY, our Chevy Volt is the best small car I have ever driven, and it saves us a ton of money on gas. not really things the military sees as goals. all costs considered, it saves us money every month over the equivalent non electric. even with the small extra purchase price factored in.

 

[MossRoad]

FUNNY, our Chevy Volt is the best small car I have ever driven, and it saves us a ton of money on gas. not really things the military sees as goals. all costs considered, it saves us money every month over the equivalent non electric. even with the small extra purchase price factored in.

Glad you like it. Chevy is discontinuing it next year.

 

[herm0016]

there will be more plug ins and electrics. not that many new tech cars last much longer without some major redesign or getting the tech pushed to the mainstays. blame the public anyway, cant build something that does not sell enough.

 

[aczlan]

FUNNY, our Chevy Volt is the best small car I have ever driven, and it saves us a ton of money on gas. not really things the military sees as goals. all costs considered, it saves us money every month over the equivalent non electric. even with the small extra purchase price factored in.

Actually, the military is very interested in fuel economy, getting fuel to some of the bases in Afghanistan is reputed to cost upwards of $20/gallon and an army that cant move is in trouble, so vehicles that get better gas mileage are important to them.

Aaron Z

 

[vvanders]

25KW continuous generator with 50KW peak. That's pretty good. Run your house in a power outage. No infrastructure for hydrogen yet, though, but who knows what the future will bring? Love to see new tech developed.

As much as I wish Fuel Cells were a viable thing they've got a bunch of things working against them. First off when they degrade you get less efficiency for the same amount of fuel. So your car that starts off at 25MPG may be 18MPG or less by the end of it's useful cycle. Secondly hydrogen storage + transport is a royal pain. Since it's so small it likes to permeate through metal and in some cases make the metal more brittle. The off-gassing also leads to needing to monitor interior spaces(garages anyone?) otherwise too much building up will explode rather nicely.

It does have some advantages around weight and fuel density but I don't see that outweighing other traditional means. It's also incredibly expensive to make it via splitting water so you're still stuck with having to source petrochemicals from somewhere.

Happy to be proven wrong but at this point there seems to be very little momentum behind it.