GM + hydrogen

[JimD]

This comes across as more of an engineering exercise than an answer to long-term energy shortfalls (the conversion process is not efficient). But, it's interesting and cute and fun.

Where does the coolant go?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry6w3mRm-FM

[Cadillac Jim]

The place the heat is generated is the electric motor(s). Most of them are air-cooled. Some ultracompact very high power electric motors have exotic thermal engineering designs such as liquid sodium to move the heat around but air cooling is nearly always used.

Remember, with piston engines burning gasoline, you see about 25% thermal efficiency, so 75% of the thermal energy, or about three times what you are delivering to the road as horsepower, goes to heat. If you are delivering, say, 25 horsepower to the road in a 65 mph cruise, you are delivering about 56 kW of heat to the cooling system, which is around 13,000 calories per second. An electric motor can be much more efficient. Variable speed, variable load electric motors are more difficult to make efficient. If you can get 80%, though, then only 25% of the delivered horsepower goes as heat. For the same 25 hp to the road, you have under 5 kW or about 1,100 calories per second to dissapate, so air cooling is much more practical.

[GreenMachine]

I wish the would go the BMW route and build a hydrogen combustion engine, most car guys would like a familar design and would most likely save on additional training costs of an entirely new technology:

http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2004/09/20/230837.html