Advanced Automotive Technology: Visions of a Super-Efficient Family Car

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Hydrogen Technical Advisory Panel has been established to provide oversight of the federal
program.

The current DOE hydrogen program is located in the Office of Utility Technologies. The

program is a comprehensive effort that involves development of technology for hydrogen

production, storage, transport, and utilization.

of hydrogen as a transportation fuel Funding

$7.4 million requested for FY 1996.^15

Department of Interior (DOI)

This infrastructure will also be required for the use

in FY 19 95 was $9.5 million, with a decrease to

l

Current activities are quite limited (only $495,000 in FY 1995), but include research to improve

titanium and aluminum matrix composite casting processes, and recycling strategies for nickel-

metal hydride batteries. A budget increase to $2.5 million is proposed for FY 1996.

DOI’s Bureau of Mines has developed considerable experience in tracking materials and energy

flows through product life cycles. Life-cycle assessment of advanced vehicles and components can

help to anticipate problems with raw materials availability, environmental impacts, and

recyclability. This includes the worldwide availability of raw materials, environmental impacts of

industrial processes, and strategies for recycling of materials. No other agency appears to be

looking seriously at these issues.

Department of Transportation (DOT)

Since 1982, when DOT research on fuel-efficient engines was terminated by the Reagan
Administration, DOT has not done significant research on light-duty vehicle propulsion systems.
However, DOT’s Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has been supporting fuel cell research for
transit buses that is likely to be relevant to fuel cell-powered light-duty vehicles. In 1987, FTA
initiated a jointly funded program with DOE to develop a fuel cell-powered bus test bed, which
was demonstrated in April 1994. The 30-foot bus is powered by a 50 kW phosphoric-acid fuel
cell with a nickel cadmium (NiCd) battery that supplies peak power. TWO similar buses are to be
tested starting in spring of 1995. FTA’s participation in that project has ended (no finds were
allocated in FY 1995), but a new project is beginning that is expected to involve 40-foot buses
powered by an advanced phosphoric acid or PEM fuel cell.

DOT has designated the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) as the

coordinator for all DOT activities relating to PNGV NHTSA is responsible for conducting safety

research and promulgating federal standards for motor vehicles. As such, much of the ongoing

research on crashworthy structures, improved restraint systems, rollover protection,

biomechanics, crash modeling, and crash avoidance for conventional vehicles is also highly

relevant to advanced vehicles. NHTSA’s FY 1995 budget request for crashworthiness research

15~ Fee 1, 1995, ti H- ~“t& on Science held hearings on H.R 655, “The Hydrogen Future Act of 1995,” which would

authorize increasesin the Hydrogen Rogramto $25 million in FY 1996,$35 million in FY 1997, and $40 million in FY 1998.