Crave

Among the many other problems with the latest James Bond film Quantum of Solace, I was particularly struck with its seemingly careless stance on technology.

The latest Bond flick does get those bloody stares right. But what happened to the cutting-edge gadgets?

(Credit: Sony Pictures)

While I know they're just movies, the Bond franchise films--like Ian Fleming's novels--have always been geopolitical snapshots of the time in which they were made.

According to this movie, the British are pinning their hopes on skillful driving and fisticuffs to get the job done, while those dabbling in high-tech solutions to solve world problems are off-the-mark.

As in Casino Royale, there is no Q. Apparently, in this Bond's world, MI6 does not arm its agents with insight and tools from teams of high-tech experts. The few gadgets used are pitifully unimaginative. (CNET News readers wrote in better gadget ideas.)

In Quantum of Solace, Bond has a cell phone he can use to call MI6 and give the name of a potential villain he's met. MI6 can look up the name and send a photo of the guy to Bond's cell phone to confirm it's the same guy. Guess what? I, too, can call a friend, have them look up a name, background, and photo; and have the info sent to my cell phone. So can millions of teenagers.

World's first Honda FCX Clarity customers

(Credit: American Honda, Susan Goldman)

The first Honda FCX Clarity customers Ron Yerxa, center, and wife Annette Ballester received a ceremonial key to their Honda hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicle at Honda of Santa Monica on Friday.

Honda announced that the zero-emissions vehicle would be available for 36-month leases only, beginning in late summer. Initial availability is limited to the Southern California and Japanese markets. Availability is expected to expand as hydrogen fueling stations become more widespread.

Not yet ready for prime time

(Credit: GM)

Which came first? Hydrogen fuel-cell cars or hydrogen filling stations? The answer depends on who you ask. General Motors yesterday called for a "collective resolve" to address the problem of infrastructure to support fuel-cell powered cars. Speaking at the National Hydrogen Association's annual meeting, GM's R&D honcho Larry Burns said that the situation with regard to fuel-cell cars had "now reached a point where the energy industry and governments must pick up their pace so we can continue to advance in a timely manner."

The other problem--which Burns failed to mention-- is the lack of actual vehicles to make use of said infrastructure. While GM and Honda have committed to putting a handful of fuel-cell vehicles on the road this year, it hardly constitutes justification for the $12 billion investment that GM and Shell anticipate it will cost to bring hydrogen access to 70 percent of the U.S. population. And without the economies of scale that comes from mass production, hydrogen cars such as the Honda Clarity and the Chevy Equinox continue to be expensive showpieces. Expect the holdups on the hydrogen highway to continue as the automakers, energy companies, and the public sector work out who is going to come up with the necessary investment for making the technology a widespread reality.

(Credit: Corgi International)

Toy cars that run on alternative energies are sometimes as impressive as their grown-up counterparts. Yet they often look like, well, toys (or even worse). But Corgi, in a partnership with Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies, has come up with a futuristic design that could easily be sitting on a full-size show floor. The "H2GO" is a remote-controlled miniature car powered by a hydrogen fuel cell that runs on water and solar energy, made of "lightweight, environmentally friendly, wheat-based plastics and boasts fully recyclable packaging," according to Pocket-lint. It even comes with its own refueling station. The only that's missing is a tiny driver that resembles Al Gore.

The production version on the Honda FCX will be based on the FCX Concept

(Credit: Honda)

Amid the excitement of the 2007 Tokyo auto show, Honda has confirmed that it will be unveiling a production version of its much-anticipated 2008 FCX hydrogen fuel-cell car next month in Los Angeles. Why the Japanese auto maker chose LA for the unveiling rather than its own back yard may have to do with the fact that a considerable number of the production FCXs will be leased to customers in the United States beginning next year. According to USA Today, Honda has not decided on the final number of models bound for the U.S. market, although it quotes Honda CEO Takeo Fukui as saying that the number will be "several 10s; under 100."

Based on the design of the FCX Concept, which makes use of a small, vertically mounted fuel-cell stack, the production version of the next-generation FCX will be the only fuel-cell car to meet all applicable federal government emissions and crash-safety standards, according to Honda.

(Credit: Honda)

Honda is thinking very much inside the box for next week's Tokyo auto show, where it will unveil its latest hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered concept. The Puyo, whose name--according to Honda--is intended to convey "the sensation of touching the vehicle's soft body," is designed to be "kind to both people and the environment".

To achieve this, the bubble-shaped vehicle (we can't bring ourselves to call it a car) has no sharp edges and features a "gel body" made from soft materials to minimize injury to pedestrians. Those unfortunate to be hit by a Puyo will then only have to deal with damaged pride.

Tomorrow, today

(Credit: CNET Networks)

A popular vision of the hydrogen future often includes swoopy, silvery cars, waterfalls, and majestic Icelandic landscapes. Chances are that the reality of hydrogen mobility may be a little more prosaic--a fact evidenced by the hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered Hyundai Tucson that we took for a ride yesterday. Aside from its obligatory hydrogen-themed badging, the Tucson--which runs on an electric motors powered by two 40kW UTC fuel cells--looked from the inside and outside like any other workaday SUV. This particular car had taken time off from its regular day job as an internal mail carrier for AC Transit, in which capacity it has clocked up 15,000 miles to date.

In initial stop-and-go urban driving, the hydrogen Tucson delivered a smooth, quiet ride. Unlike those of many other manufacturers, UTC's fuel cells do not rely on a compressor for the hydrogen fuel feed, and so the whine we have experienced when driving other hydrogen cars was absent. After about 10 minutes of drive time, the hydrogen Tucson began juddering when under acceleration, a phenomenon that Hyundai technicians put down to the car's power-management system, which regulates the amount of current to the motor to ensure the car has sufficient motive power at all times.

One of the key challenges for the future of hydrogen cars using a proton-exchange membrane fuel cell (along with the minor issue of producing and distributing the fuel) is the longevity of the fuel cells themselves. Platinum, used as a catalyst for the fuel cell's cathode, has a tendency to degrade over time, typically through the creation of hydroxides in the fuel cell, which react with the platinum, rendering it ineffective. Accordingly, Hyundai, like many other auto manufacturers with hydrogen projects are not sure how long their hydrogen Tucson is going to last. But, like the other 32 cars in Hyundai's operational hydrogen fleet, it is a taste of the future in the real world of today.

GM's hydrogen fuel cell Volt, shown at the Shanghai Auto Show.

(Credit: General Motors Photo/ Natalie Behring)

Hydrogen is lightweight and efficient as a fuel. When it burns, you get water as the exhaust, and the fuel cell technology that burns the gas is well developed. The major hang-up has been how to produce hydrogen without needing lots of fossil-derived energy.

Apparently, the way to cheap hydrogen is through aluminum. Purdue researchers earlier this year announced they'd found a way to use aluminum to get hydrogen from water. Today a Chinese ceramicist who did graduate work in Portugal says there's an even simpler way to derive hydrogen. This process uses powdered aluminum at room temperature, under normal atmospheric pressure. This use of modified aluminum powder could promise a cheap way to produce hydrogen for fuel cells.

It's long been engineers' hope to power everything from portable devices to cars with power cells. We have video of experimental hydrogen-powered cars here.

The Chevy Equinox

(Credit: GM)

General Motors looks like it is serious about this whole hydrogen fuel cell business. The company announced today that it had moved over 500 engineers from development duties over to groups focused on the production of fuel-cell-powered vehicles.

According to GM, more than 400 of its fuel cell engineers will now report to its Powertrain Group to begin production engineering of fuel cell systems. A further 100 fuel cell experts are being moved to a separate group focused on integrating fuel cells into future models.

While GM has already committed itself to putting 100 fuel-cell-powered Chevy Equinoxes on the road this year as part of its Project Driveway program, the sheer number of engineers that it is reallocating suggests that the company has its sights set on a much bigger deployment of hydrogen fuel cell cars in the foreseeable future.

There has been much hoopla around hydrogen fuel cell development of late, with the likes of Honda, Mercedes, and Ford trotting out prototypes and concepts to feed the demand for alternatives to gas engines, but GM's announcement represents one of the biggest commitments to developing the technology for the real-world market.

Today's news follows last month's news from Purdue University that scientists there had found a potentially new method for onboard creation of hydrogen in cars.