Is the Chevy Colorado ZH2 the new Humvee

This is a Chevy ZH2. It's a Colorado that's powered by a hydrogen fuel cell and about a half a year ago the U.S. military started testing it to see if it's a viable military vehicle. When you saw it the last time we had freshly built it but hadn't even started it up for the first time yet. So you saw it at AUSA, we took it to SEMA in Las Vegas as part of the Chevy display there. Coming up right now we're gonna go for a ride. I wish I could drive it but I can't in the new ZH2 and we're gonna tell you everything you ever want to know about it. I talked to GM and this is a four million dollar prototype. It's true. You're not gonna allow a journalist to get behind the wheel of a four million dollar prototype. I'm surprised they let me get behind it. So we started with Eglin Air Force Base. They brought it to back in May. I'm getting some special forces groups and some Air Force medics behind the wheel and evaluating it and now here this week we've been at Fort Carson, Colorado. So what's under the hood of this Colorado is what makes it very unique. It's that right there. It's a GM Gen Zero fuel cell and what you're hearing is actually the compressor feeding oxygen through that fuel cell that uses hydrogen to power the vehicle and what comes out the tailpipe is nothing but water. Yeah so essentially what we're doing is we're taking hydrogen as our onboard fuel. So you would dispense compressed gaseous hydrogen into the ZH2. Then the fuel cell is actually the device under the hood. We call it the fuel cell stack. It's the box under the hood and that's the heart and soul of the operation. That's taking that onboard hydrogen and that's taking oxygen from the air that we breathe and it's converting that into electricity and then water is the only byproduct. So it's actually there's no combustion, there's no pistons, there's no sparks, really no moving parts inside the fuel cell. It's gas flows. It's hydrogen and air in, electricity and water out. It also has a very low heat signature and best of all it has a power takeoff on the back that can also power large pieces of military equipment. You essentially pull the vehicle up, plug in what you need to plug in and you would turn on the exportable power takeoff unit in the back of the vehicle and you're powering whatever you just hooked up. So how much power does it put out? 25 continuous 50 peak kilowatts at 240 volts. You know a typical American home is you know just a couple few kilowatts of power. So you could power you know five to ten single family homes. So I mean when you put it in perspective like that you know 25,000 watts of power. That's a lot of power in a very small package. I think this would be a great Baja 1000 truck. I could see like a recruiting tool for the military. What makes the ZH2 ultimately off-road worthy are these 37 inch tires. It also has a 48 degree approach angle, a 39 degree departure angle, 12 inches of ground clearance and of course a locking front differential. So obviously primarily when you're driving the vehicle predominantly the electricity produced in the fuel cell in real time is delivered to the electric motor to propel the vehicle. Of course every other system on board the vehicle is all electric power. It's electric power steering, electric air conditioning, electric air induction. So everything's electric powered when you're driving the vehicle. How is it off-road as an off-road vehicle? Fantastic. I don't think the suspension we're really trying to demonstrate as a technology but the suspension that they put on this thing is tremendous. So every soldier I've talked to so far they're highlighting how great they think the suspension is on this thing. In addition to they like the silent watch and the capabilities that the fuel cell brings but they also notice the capability. They said that it's more capable off-road than existing Humvees. Get out. So I mean you'll talk to the soldiers. Yeah I mean this is of course older technology. It is absolutely. You know that's got a lot. Yeah I mean it's got good ground clearance but the suspension they fit on is just top rate. Yeah I could see it as being fun. How does it compare to like I got a Razor there right? They're saying it's got more mobility than the M Razor too. And are you at all concerned that you know that's a lot of armor on this bad boy? There's none of that. So no but purposely we're starting off with what is the technology? What is the applicability of that technology? Once we can demonstrate the applicability of technology up armoring is something that we can do. It just wasn't required in terms of to get the information that we need out of this operational assessment. Do you see the U.S. Army moving towards this kind of vehicle in the future? So it's not about it's not about the vehicle. There are applications for this vehicle in the Army which potentially. So it's about the tech. Certain aspect but yeah it is about the technology. So how fast is it? Well the GM guys will tell you it's faster than a Humvee. Zero to 60 over 15 seconds and a top speed of only 62 miles an hour. I've never actually been in a Humvee but I don't think a Humvee will go that fast will it? Oh yeah. It'll go that fast? Yeah. All right never mind. A Humvee will go that fast but will it be that smooth? It's only about 40. Yeah but will it be that smooth? No. So there you go. I've never been in a Humvee but it won't be that smooth. The fact that you can have a silent mobile platform that's tremendous in addition to the fuel savings. So if you can go twice the range and reduce the logistics footprint anything we do the Army is completely burdened with our logistics footprint for all the fuel it takes for combat vehicles and our wheeled vehicle fleet and anything we do to reduce that even 10-20 percent is significant across the Army at large. Zero to 30 is in about four and a half seconds and zero to 60 is in about 16-17 seconds. That seems slow but when you compare it to a Humvee. Yeah so we kind of you know 25 seconds zero to 60 time was kind of the bogey there so obviously this is just you know far beyond that and really again was reusing an existing electric motor we regeared it and the motor that we had demonstrated in the Equinox fuel cell vehicle fleet and so we by reusing that existing motor we regeared it to give it you know an overall balance of top speed grade ability. Now if you're listening to me speak you will hear an air compressor running and that's because that is what's powering the fuel cell and in fact these big air scoops bring air into the vehicle and then it gets pushed out the back but this compared to let's say a diesel engine is about as quiet as it gets. Yeah so just inherently fuel cells are very quiet you know really there's very few moving parts relative to a combustion engine you don't necessarily have an exhaust note like you would with a combustion engine. Right now here in Colorado and you picked it up in your video earlier really about all you're hearing is the air compressor and really the reason you're hearing that is because of the you know the thin air up here you know right now we're sitting in you know close to 7,000 foot elevation so you have to you know put a lot more volume of air through the fuel cell to get the oxygen that we need. Will it actually make enough water to to be able to create water for the soldiers to drink? Potentially so you know when you when you look at this the water production volume from the fuel cell you can make up to two gallons of water an hour. Now again today we have a just a traditional tailpipe it's essentially you hold your hand up to the tailpipe on the ZH-2 it's like your dryer vent at home just warm moist air. If we were to you know if we wanted to be able to put equipment on it to capture that water you could do so. I can't hear it look how quiet that is that's so cool look at that all right and right now really all you're hearing is just a little bit of radiator fan up in the back. I wish I could have driven this vehicle but right now it's a military vehicle and I obviously don't have the military credentials to get behind the wheel nor would GM let me get behind the wheel of it because I suspect that this is a very expensive one-off hydrogen-powered Colorado. Will GM build these for civilian use? I sure hope so because wouldn't it be cool to have a vehicle that could not only run on hydrogen and produce nothing but water but also power your house. As always this is Roman reporting for the Fast Lane Truck. Check out tfltruck.com for more news views and of course Colorado ZH-2 reviews. See you guys next time I'm gonna no I can't drive it I wish I could. Dang it!