GM will be providing 13 fuel cell-powered vehicles and Shell Hydrogen intends to establish New York State’s first hydrogen service station in the New York City metropolitan area in 2006, which is anticipated to involve installing a portable hydrogen-refueling module at an existing Shell station.
GM and Shell will be the only team bringing fuel cell vehicles and hydrogen refueling to the New York City metropolitan area under the US Department of Energy’s Infrastructure Demonstration and Validation Project.
According to Larry Burns, GM’s vice president of R&D and planning, this is a critical step toward creating a sustainable future. This fleet will put New York in the forefront on the road to a future in which our vehicles, industries, and economy are energized by hydrogen.
Today, automobiles are 98% dependent on petroleum. Because hydrogen can be obtained from a wide variety of feedstocks, including renewable sources, it has the potential to reduce our petroleum dependence substantially. And because fuel cells using hydrogen emit just water, they could remove automobiles from the environmental debate, Burns added.
The New York fleet is part of a total of 40 vehicles that GM is building under the US Department of Energy’s program. GM will also introduce fleets in California and the Detroit metro area and expand the current Washington DC fleet, which today includes six HydroGen3 vehicles.
In addition to the New York station, under this program Shell will provide two hydrogen refueling stations in California, and a fourth station will be located somewhere between New York and Washington DC.
