The state of Michigan awarded a $2 million grant to GM and Honda on Tuesday, February 28th, 2023, supporting development of the companies’ joint hydrogen fuel cell facility on the south side of Detroit.
The operation, named Fuel Cell System Manufacturing LLC, is a subdivision within the existing Brownstown Battery Assembly Plant in Brownstown, Michigan. The grant will provide only a fraction of the $48.9 million required to set up the new hydrogen fuel cell operation, The Detroit News reports.
The grant was initially approved in 2017 by the Michigan Strategic Fund board of the Michigan Economic Development Corp. However, the money was not awarded immediately because at that time, Fuel Cell System Manufacturing wasn’t close enough to beginning operations to meet the grant’s requirements.
GM and Honda intended the Fuel Cell System joint venture to start producing fuel cells in 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic scuttled these plans, introducing several years of delays. Today in 2023, GM and Honda have resumed development and the launch of Fuel Cell System Manufacturing operations is in the immediate future. This timing makes the project eligible for the immediate award of the $2 million, so disbursement of the funds is pending.
The global manager of economic development for GM, Candace Butler, stated that the automaker sees “fuel cells as a critical part of our all-electric future.” She added that hydrogen fuel cells are a good fit for “industries and applications that traditionally rely on diesel to meet their energy goals.” Butler also noted the $2 million grant will be useful in getting the project up and running.
Brownstown Battery Assembly Plant currently produces batteries for both the GMC Hummer EV and the Cadillac Lyriq. It also produces components for the vehicles used by Cruise, GM’s autonomous vehicle subsidiary, including production of roof modules.
As noted, GM and Honda have been working on a joint hydrogen fuel cell project in the U.S. for several years. The two companies began collaborating on development of a fuel cell system a decade ago in 2013. The General and Honda have continued to work together on fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) technology since, with GM co-developing the FCEV powertrain Honda uses in its existing and upcoming hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
Today, there are only 56,000 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on the road worldwide. However, launch of the Fuel Cell System Manufacturing LLC operation could help to change that. Honda is also planning a new compact crossover FCEV nameplate, while GM intends to develop medium-duty trucks powered by a combination of batteries and its HydroTec hydrogen fuel cell technology.
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Comments
GM & Honda will merge eventually. Doesn’t bother me because Japan is an ally just like Italy and France with Stellantis.
I like how hydrogen fills quite unlike electric charging. I remember PSA developed a air compression system to run cars with Bosch but it was too heavy for the vehicles. This is a technology I’m very curious about
I don’t think the Japanese regulators would ever allow it. They’re very protective of their companies and they saw what happened with the Nissan / Renault alliance (and that wasn’t even a merger). I think that makes them very wary of foreign companies and CEOs having any say over how a Japanese company is run.
I think GM and Honda will get closer but stay fully-independent.
What’s so hot about a fuel that looses 40% of its energy upon creation, and another 50% upon use????
You know what boggles my mind? That nobody is talking about biofuels. That’s a reaction that retains 80% of the energy from its bio stock, which comes from chlorophyll, which is 86% efficient compared to solars 15%, and has a long history of know how, won’t grenade with a massive explosion upon a car crash, heck, when used in diesel form, is really really hard to ignite generally.
But i digress. It’s obvious that the current powers don’t want us to have nuke power, despite having no qualms with bombs, why would they even allow us to pursue biofuels
Yea would be better than Chrysler and fiat merger
Honda just does not have the money to go it alone. They are also independent enough to not want to merge.
The GM Honda deal is great for both for share cost and the other to save costs.
The problem is Fuel Cells still need a lot of work. The cost are still high and it will take time to reduce them.
But with more space program’s government spending will increase on this tech and it will move development along more.
This will be used in fleets first and expand over time. Most EV tech can carry over in the drive line so they are half way there.
Methinks the problem with the fuel cells is that they are still produced with lots of manual labor, and there needs to be an automatization to put the production on industrial scale.
In principle, producing the electric energy for the electric drive train on board of the vehicle is better, i.e. more efficient than shlepping a huge and heavy rechargeable battery in the car.
I am exited about hydrogen fuel possibilities. I hear there are studies now to create hydrogen using only sunlight and some metals that are not as expensive and rare. While still providing enough output to separate the water molecules to hydrogen and oxygen without using large amounts of electricity to do the job. Making hydrogen truly green energy. Both in production of hydrogen and the vehicle burning hydrogen having the only byproduct being water vapor exiting the tailpipe. Biofuels are old tech and as far as being afraid of driving a vehicles with a fuel cell ready to explode on impact there were many vehicles in the 1970s with LP tanks driving around when gas was really expensive. So many fleet vehicles were converted to Natural gas. Not so different than hydrogen.