Back in 1978, a grinning Jack Nicholson had himself a hydrogen fueled, solar powered Chevy, which he charmingly refers to as a vehicle which will “revolutionize suicides” for lack of carbon monoxide poisoning. The announcer — who predicts nationwide hydrogen filling stations at 1/4th the price (“or about .35 per cents per gallon”) — also has a good line: “explosion-resistant.” I especially love the announcer’s optimism at the end: “If this ever does become real, don’t forget you saw it first on Market Watch!” We won’t, guy.
Considering we never see this car actually being driven, I suspect this was just a promotional stunt by Chevy, who gave Nicholson a check and a few good lines on cue cards to distract journalists from their not-really-functioning prototype. Does anyone know any more about this car?
Jack Nicholson’s Car [YouTube via Treehugger]
Ummm… Isn’t that the prototype being driven at about 35secs in?
Yeah… it drives about ten feet, then stops. What I meant to say was that it probably wasn’t capable of doing anything more than that.
Very interesting video. Amazing that the idea has taken just 30 years to not be accomplished!!!
I love the part where Jack takes a hit off of his tailpipe!! Priceless!
This car probably worked o.k. The problem never was with the engine, it was – and still is – with storage. There are all kinds of nasty problems when you try to store hydrogen, and always a fair chance it goes boom. I saw a similar film about a Mercedes with a hydrogen engine. Only this one was from the early sixties.
“or about .35 per cents per gallon”: The host actually says “about the same as if you were paying 35 cents per gallon…” I’m not sure what .35 per cents per gallon even means.
Oddly enough 35 cents per gallon would be 55% of 63 cents (the average price of gas in 1978), a little more than the “a quarter to a half the cost” stated by the company via the host.
Can somebody please explain to me how hydrogen works as a fuel?
From my understanding, when you burn fuel, you start with a signle large, complex hydrocarbon, which reacts with a small number of oxygen molecules, to yield a LARGE number of CO2 molecules (possibly along with some other stuff, but let’s keep it simple). To summarize, start with a few molecules, end up with a lot of molecules (plus some heat). It is this increase in molecules and heat with (according to Boyle’s law) drives the pistons in the engine.
Now, for hydrogen, you have something like:
2-H2 + O2 => 2-H2O.
So, you start with three molecules, and end up with two, which would LOWER the pressure in the cylinder. Now, the heat generated would create the pressure, but some of the energy is used just to overcome this natural vacuum effect. This means that hydrogen would be a terrible fuel for powering a piston-driven engine (fuel cells are another matter because they work differently).
Am I missing something here?
It’s not the long-term pressure change which powers an internal combustion engine, it’s the explosive combustion which releases energy in the form of heat. The change in number of molecules is not significant relative to the amount of chemical energy being released.
It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.
I’d hazard a guess it was Nicholson who was writing the cheques here for this solar hydrogen startup.
What Keith means is that yes there will be two volumes of gas in place of three, but each bit will also be a moving around a lot faster after combustion and therefore occupy greater volume. Or something like that.
while it is true that the hydrogen and oxygen shrink instead of expand by the time the chemical reaction is complete, they have substantially increased the heat of the the surrounding gas which causes it to expand.