By Christopher A. Sawyer
The Virtual Driver

(October 17, 2016) Chevy’s Colorado ZH2 is more than 6.5 feet tall and seven feet wide, rides on 37-in. offload tires, has a stretched chassis, and has been reinforced for severe duty. It is powered by a hydrogen fuel cell, and has an Exportable Power Take-Off (EPTO) that lets soldiers use the fuel cell to power electrical items away from the vehicle.

Yes, soldiers. The Colorado ZH2 has been built for the U.S. Army to test in extreme field conditions. It’s another step in the evaluation of the viability of fuel cell-powered vehicles in military applications. Some of the advantages of this powertrain are:

    Near silence under load
    Silent watch capability
    Full torque from zero rpm
    Low fuel consumption
    Water as a byproduct



But one of the most important features over the long term is the fact that it doesn’t use gasoline, diesel, JP8 or any other hydrocarbon fuel. And not because of any idea that “climate change” is a greater threat to the world than terrorism. The idea is much more simple. The single greatest cost in any war is the procurement and shipping of fuel to the battlefield.

During the Iraq War it cost on average of $400 to get each gallon of fuel to the battlefield. If the armed forces can create hydrogen in theater (another area of feverish work), or adapt on-site fuel stocks to the creation of fuel (as in a solid aside fuel cell), these costs can be lowered significantly. Even more important, it has the potential to allow the military to move more rapidly without overrunning its fuel supplies.

GM also is working with the military on the latter’s Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV). It, too, is powered by a fuel cell, and is in the midst of pool testing before being deployed. It uses the same fuel cell design as the ZH2, scaled to fit the UUV.

This isn’t GM’s first foray into fuel cell-powered vehicles. Long before the UUV, ZH2, and the Autonomy and Hy-Wire concepts of the last decade, GM was working on fuel cell-powered vehicles. Its first was the 1966 Electrovan, the world’s first hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicle.

The Electrovan project began in January 1966, and was completed 10 month later. Two hundred people worked in three shifts, and debuted a working prototype at GM’s Power of Progress press conference that October. Unlike today’s fuel cell, the Elecrovan’s unit was huge. There was room for just the driver and one passenger. The rest of the vehicle was filled with the prototype fuel cell.

After its days in the limelight were over, the Electron was sent to a storage facility in Pontiac, Mich., where it stayed for 31 years. With luck, the  same fate won’t befall the ZH2.

The Virtual Driver