General Motors and the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development & Engineering Center (TARDEC) have announced that they are expanding their collaboration to develop hydrogen fuel cell technology.
The two parties signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement to “jointly test new hydrogen fuel cell-related materials and designs to evaluate their performance and durability before assembling them into full scale fuel cell propulsion systems,” said the automaker in a statement.
GM and TARDEC will jointly develop technology that meets both of their requirements, with the project expected to continue for up to five years.
The announcement follows a similar one in July this year, when GM and Honda signed a long-term partnership to co-develop a next-generation fuel cell system and hydrogen storage technologies.
GM is currently building a new Fuel Cell Development Laboratory in Pontiac, Michigan, where most of its fuel cell development work will take place. TARDEC’s lab is 20 miles away, which means daily collaboration will be possible, including sharing physical material and data between the locations. TARDEC’s Warren, Michigan, lab enables it to test and integrate the fuel cell systems it has been developing for military applications for more than a decade.
“The Army continues to investigate technologies and partnerships that give the United States a decisive advantage,” said TARDEC Director Paul Rogers. “Our relationships – like this one with GM – are maturing and accelerating technologies critical to the transportation and energy capabilities of the future,” he added.
The U.S. Army is evaluating GM’s fuel cell technology in order to apply it to military ground vehicles and mobile generators.
How long do you think it will be before we see fuel cell tanks?
By Dan Mihalascu
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