Hydrogen fuel car — king of the roads on campus

In a jaded town where expensive, exotic cars don't necessarily rate stares from the locals, UCLA's engineering school has two with enough cachet to make heads turn on campus.

Just park one of the school's $750,000 Mercedes Benz A-Class compact cars — the ones boldly emblazoned with �F-Cell� (for fuel cell) — anywhere on campus, and the curious will gather around it, begging for a peek under the hood.

Instead of a gas-guzzling engine, what they'll see is a hydrogen fuel cell that has no moving parts — �no cylinders, no spark plugs, no internal combustion engine. All gone,� said Vasilios Manousiouthakis, a professor and chemical engineer at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and caretaker of the cars.

The cars, which some experts predict will become the next-generation, alternative-fuel vehicle, were donated by DaimlerChrysler so that the professor and his students could evaluate how well the fuel cell works and so that students could become familiar with this emerging technology.

�If you're looking to drag-race one,� said Ben Davis, an engineering graduate student who's familiar with the cars, �you'll probably be disappointed. It goes fairly fast, but it doesn't have a lot of power. It's designed to be efficient. It's quiet, and it handles pretty well.�

But it's what comes out of the tailpipe that's so impressive. Instead of nasty pollutants, these cars produce clean water droplets. �That's a compelling argument for the use of these kinds of cars in Los Angeles and other big cities,� the professor said.

Under the hood in a fuel cell the size of a car battery, a catalytic reaction takes place. Hydrogen molecules are first broken down into ions and electrons, which drive the car's electric motor. Then, the ions recombine with the electrons and oxygen in the air to form water, the car's only emission.

�All of this happens at a much higher efficiency than with an internal combustion engine. You get far superior mileage,� Manousiouthakis said.

Another advantage is that hydrogen fuel can be made using different sources of energy. The professor, for example, has filed patents on some innovative ways to produce hydrogen fuel from the sun, generating as a by-product electricity that can be sold.

For now, there are still sizable bumps in the road for such cars. UCLA's cars can go about 100 miles on one fill-up of 2.5 kilograms of highly pressurized hydrogen gas, pumped into two carbon-fiber storage tanks under the seats. But the closest place to fill up is the Air Quality Management District's station in Diamond Bar.

To make the 86-mile round trip, Manousiouthakis had to buy a trailer. He then rents a truck to pull the trailered car to the pump, where the district allows him to top off for free. �The fuel is free, but every mile (driven) costs an arm and a leg,� the professor groaned. A new fueling station being planned at LAX could shorten the trip considerably.

Manousiouthakis is certain that if the astronomical cost of the fuel cell and the storage tanks ever drops, so that the car could be bought for, say, $40,000, people will start purchasing these cars. �I have no doubt in my mind that at some point, the price will become compelling enough for the car-driving public to think about making the fuel switch.�

Decal art diagrams: DaimlerChrysler/Vasilios Manousiouthakis