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"  NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. -- The first question everyone asks me when they see my fuel cell Chevy Equinox is simple enough: &amp;quot;So what does that run on?&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;Hydrogen gas,&amp;quot; my standard, smiling reply goes. And it always leads to a second question: &amp;quot;So where exactly do you get that from?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Well,&amp;quot; I say, &amp;quot;Good question.&amp;quot; During my first week with this loner alt-fuel car, my Driver Relationship Manager (DRM) from GM would meet me when I needed to refuel. I hadn&amp;#039;t yet been trained on the filling process--or the intricacies of these fuel facilities. Let me tell you, it&amp;#039;s pretty difficult to schedule fill-ups and precisely plan in advance how far you&amp;#039;re going to drive. We&amp;#039;re all quite spoiled in this regard, with a gas station (however high-priced) on just about every corner. And that reality really sinks in when you&amp;#039;re driving a fuel cell vehicle. That first weekend, I drove the car up to L.A. I wanted to show my friends the Equinox and take them for a test drive. But after hitting the 405 freeway for an hour-plus and then running a few errands around the L.A. area, I was getting nervous. I had to tell my friend, &amp;quot;Only once around the block, otherwise I&amp;#039;m not going to make it home.&amp;quot; I made it back to Orange County with only three miles left, according to the display. Whew. A few days later, I was formally trained at the hydrogen filling station, and the process is pretty straightforward: A data cable connects behind the rear license plate, and a high-pressure hose with a &amp;quot;quick-connect&amp;quot; fitting pops on behind the filler door. This data cable allows the vehicle to &amp;quot;drive&amp;quot; the pump. It sends temperature and pressure info from the car&amp;#039;s tanks to the pump and lets it know when to shut off. Right now, it&amp;#039;s a bit awkward stepping over the data cable to get to the pump. But my Equinox is an early testbed for GM. Eventually, they say, that cable will be integrated into the fill hose, with an infrared data link.  The hydrogen dispensed is measured in kilograms, and the Chevy Equinox has three impact-resistant, carbon-fiber epoxy tanks that store a total of 4.2 kg. Today, a kilogram of hydrogen gas sells for roughly $4. On that amount of hydrogen, the Equinox can go 40 to 50 miles, depending on driving style--and whether you&amp;#039;re zipping along the highway or crawling through city streets. Hydrogen prices, when production ramps up for the public, is estimated to range between $2 and $4 per kilogram, according to what I&amp;#039;ve learned.  Those of you who have read the first two installments of this series (on GM&amp;#039;s program and my driving impressions) know that I really love driving this vehicle. It&amp;#039;s got plenty of power, it&amp;#039;s quiet, and I like the fact that I&amp;#039;m not dependant on the oil companies. I&amp;#039;ve gotten used to the 160-mile range, too. But to make this car viable for longer hauls, the range would have to increase and, maybe more important, we would need to build new hydrogen stations. There just aren&amp;#039;t enough of them. California has a Hydrogen Highway program in place to build out hydrogen filling stations. But currently, I only have a handful of places to fill up. In Southern California there are only six semipublic fueling stations. GM has its own filling capability, and there are probably a few other private stations. But in all of SoCal, there just aren&amp;#039;t very many places to go. GM isn&amp;#039;t directly involved in building stations, but they are working to facilitate the growth of the infrastructure.  Luckily, I live only 3 miles from one of the most advanced stations in the country. The University of California at Irvine and Air Products partnered to create a real showcase for fueling technology. The station is open 24/7, supplies both 350 bar (5000 psi) and 700 bar (10,000 psi) pressures, and can perform a 700 bar fill-er-up in roughly 5 or 6 minutes. I have access to this station via my own RFID tag and pin number, any time I need fuel. The UCI facility is rare. It can fill a tank at 700 bar, and do so in a short amount of time. With a more common 350 bar fill, the vehicle has only half the effective range. The other fill stations in SoCal are primarily 350 bar, and most are only open for limited hours. In the short time I&amp;#039;ve had the Equinox, I have seen one new station come on line. Shell retrofitted one of its traditional gas stations with a single hydrogen pump. They installed an electrolyzer (a device that applies electricity to water to produce hydrogen) on the canopy of the gas station. And the hydrogen is available to the public. With a few more investments like this by other companies, we could have a respectable infrastructure to support the first generation of fuel cell vehicles. Until then, it&amp;#039;s the famous dilemma of what comes first--fuel cells to create a demand for hydrogen, or hydrogen stations to make fuel cell vehicles practical.  Home refueling is another alternative that could make a big impact. Natural gas vehicles have had this advantage for a while. Devices can compress the gas that is already available on site at most homes and refuel the car while it&amp;#039;s parked in the driveway. Hydrogen is a little trickier, and having the equipment to pressurize it would be costly. I read that Honda, VW and other manufacturers are working on home solutions. These systems could go a long way to provide a practical means for refueling in the future. But the way I see it, the key is to start building those hydrogen filling stations--now. With the experience I&amp;#039;ve had driving this vehicle these past few weeks, I&amp;#039;m eagerly awaiting the day I can buy one. But I certainly don&amp;#039;t want limitations on how far I can go--so check back here in two weeks, because my mpg bottom line is coming soon. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/hybrid-electric/a3382/4273916/>