Another test-drive in the EcoXperience section of the NAIAS yesterday shows what the future might soon be. The Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell is now three years old, in the hands of 100 consumers all over the country, and with more scattered around to places such as the United States Postal Service.

The Equinox FC is a reverse fuel cell that adds oxygen to compressed hydrogen to create electricity, rather than splitting the hydrogen and oxygen atoms to create it. It takes hydrogen compressed in two 10,000-psi tanks stored in the rear of the vehicle, goes through its process of combining one hydrogen atom with two oxygen atoms, which in turn develops electricity and water. The electrical energy is stored in battery packs while the water just exits from the back of the vehicle. The energy in the battery packs is then used to power two electrical motors at each front wheel, which move the vehicle.

From a standstill, the Equinox felt very fast thanks to its high torque motors and exhibited a whoosh sound as the gas pedal was depressed further. The GM Fuel Cell engineer with us went into detail about the intelligence of the system and when questioned if it still costs a million dollars, he said that the cost has gone down significantly. He said, "it's like the first cell phone, it was extremely expensive and had limited functionality..." but now they are just about free and can do anything.

The engineer also stated that this technology is nowhere near as new as people make it out to be, but that the major problem to making it available is the refueling infrastructure. No one will buy a vehicle that does not work after the tank is empty, so until that is developed, it would not make sense to roll them out.