General Motors is expanding its partnership with the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research and Development Engineering Center (TARDEC) to determine future applications of fuel cell technology. In a press release, GM said the partnership will allow the carmaker and TARDEC to “jointly test new hydrogen fuel cell-related materials and designs … before assembling them into full scale fuel cell propulsion systems.”
The fuel cell laboratories are just around 20 miles apart. TARDEC opened a fuel cell laboratory April 2012 in the Ground System Power and Energy Laboratory building in suburban Detroit. The Army is currently evaluating GM fuel cell vehicles in Hawaii for possible military applications -- from ground vehicles to mobile generators. Fuel cell technology is said to hold answers to the two major vehicle issues -- petroleum use and carbon dioxide emissions.
Fuel cell vehicles do not need non-renewable fossil fuel to operate, only renewable hydrogen. Aside from that, the only thing that such vehicles emit is water. According to GM, the project is expected to continue for up to five years. In July, GM and Honda inked a partnership to develop a common system for fuel cell vehicles, targeting a rollout by 2020. GM is building a laboratory in suburban Detroit, where the most of its fuel cell development work will occur.