Automotive News Canada - July 2016 - 3

SECOND FRONT
The life of hydrogen adopters at Ground Zero
LIMITED INFRASTRUCTURE

While battery electrics can plug in just about
anywhere, there is almost no place in Canada to
get hydrogen, which illustrates the giant canyon
between this science experiment and real life
By STEVE MERTL
VA N C O U V E R C O R R E S P O N D E N T

FOR ALL THE TALK OF
HYDROGEN'S benefits as a fuel,
there's still one big problem,
which involves a chicken and
an egg.
There can be no filling stations without cars, and there
can be no cars without filling
stations.
For the amount of investment in technology, the handful
of vehicles on the road seems
hardly worth the effort, but it
has to start somewhere.
Jenny Ma is a pioneer
who has to drive her Hyundai
Tucson to the one place in
Metro Vancouver where they
can refuel its hydrogen-fuel-cell
powerplant.
Ma and her husband Clay
Crawley of Surrey, B.C., were
the first Canadians to take delivery of a Tucson FCEV. Hyundai
Canada is the first major auto-

maker to offer hydrogen to the
public, albeit on a limited basis.
She and Crawley are halfway through the heavily subsidized three-year lease, paying
$599 a month, which includes all
fuel and service costs.
Ma, a chiropractor and naturopath, is the main user for
what has been a trouble-free 18
months with only two routine
service visits.
"We were kind of expecting
it to have some issues but we
haven't had any at all," she told
Automotive News Canada.

REFUELING HEADACHES
Luckily, the couple lives
just a few minutes drive from
Powertech, a research firm
whose hydrogen fuel pump is
available to Hyundai lessees.
"I fill up twice a week regardless of whether or not I need it,
because it's convenient," said
Ma. "It gets frustrating when
there's just one station and

07.16

PHOTO: HYUNDAI

Jenny Ma and her husband Clay Crawley live in B.C. and are
on a short leash with their hydrogen-powered Hyundai Tucson
as there's only one filling station they can use. Anywhere.
they're only open [8 a.m. to 5
p.m.] and they're closed on the
weekends."
That, in a nutshell, is the reason automakers are not rolling
out FCEVs in Canada in greater numbers, as they have in
other markets such as Germany,
California and Korea.
Despite being the most
abundant resource in the universe, hydrogen fuel in Canada
is scarce. Hyundai decided
last year to take the plunge to
demonstrate its commitment to

the zero-emission technology.
"We felt the ball had to start
to get rolling." Hyundai Canada
president Don Romano said in
an interview. "Somebody had to
go out there and say, 'check this
out, get people to drive it.'"
There are six Tucsons in
Metro Vancouver and one in
the Toronto area so far, with
a half-dozen more in the pipeline, Romano said. Hyundai has
about 100 in customer hands
in California, and precisely 534
worldwide.

The stumbling block in
Canada that keeps other FCEV
makers such as Toyota, Honda
and Mercedes-Benz out, continues to be a lack of refuelling
facilities. Hyundai has no set
target for its Canadian program,
but Romano said it depends on
building more fuel stations.
"Only so many people can
leverage the limited infrastructure that's out there, he said.
"Until we begin to see hydrogen pumps being put up in convenient locations, like they are
in California, it's going to be a
slow road."
Hydrogen is a plentiful element that can be collected/produced in several ways. After
initial enthusiasm in the 1990s,
high costs and technical hurdles
slowed the pace of commercialization, and with it the momentum to develop a refueling network.
The handful of hydrogen pumps that exist in the
Vancouver area are used largely by research vehicles and fuelcell buses in Whistler, north of

SEE 'HYDRONAUTS' PAGE 10

TRANS-CANADA NEWS 5,000 KILOMETRES OF STORIES
Carmakers recognized
as top employers

PHOTO: AUTOMOTIVE NEWS EUROPE

Chris Urmson is a graduate of the University of Manitoba and was
hired by Google in 2009.

Meet the Canadian in charge
of Google's autonomous program
By MARK ATKINSON

FREDERICTON, N.B. CORRESPONDENT

Chris Urmson, the Canadian
engineer leading Google's
self-driving car program, earned
his Bachelor of Computer
Engineering at the University of
Manitoba, 1994-'98.
Later, during his doctorate program and research professorship
at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon
University, Urmson headed up the
school's various DARPA (Defense
Advanced Research Projects
Agency) Challenge teams; they
won the Urban Challenge in 2007
with a modified Chevrolet Tahoe,
after finishing on the podium
in 2005-'06 with Hummer-based
machines.
Urmson's work caught Google's
eye, and he was hired as chief
technology officer and director of
self-driving cars in 2009.
Google's fleet of self-driving
prototypes, mostly modified Lexus
RX Hybrids, have completed nearly 3.2 million kilometres of testing in California and Texas - two
states that allow driverless vehicles on public roads. There have

been only 11 minor collisions and
no injuries in Google car testing
to date.
After every incident, the team
analyzed the data to determine the
cause, and then implemented thousands of programming changes to
prevent it from happening again.
Recently, Google decided to
develop its own self-driving vehicle
as a test bed, which it says is easier to use, requiring neither a steering wheel or pedals.
Google's timeline for rolling out
self-driving cars to customers varies widely, according to Urmson,
in a recent presentation made at
the South by Southwest festival in
Austin, Texas.
"If you read the papers, you see
maybe it's three years, maybe it's
30 years. And I am here to tell you
that honestly, it's a bit of both.
"This technology is almost certainly going to come out incrementally. We imagine we are going to
find places where the weather is
good, where the roads are easy to
drive; the technology might come
there first. And then once we have
confidence with that, we will move
to more challenging locations."

FCA, Ford Motor Co.,
General Motors, Honda and
Toyota Motor Manufacturing
have all been named among
Canada's "most attractive"
employers in the sixth annual Randstad award survey.
The award, the largest
independent survey worldwide into employer branding by the employment agency, is based on "perceived
appeal of manufacturers for
their commitment to worklife balance and environmental/social awareness" with
Canadians aged 18 to 65.

New marketing
director at Volvo

Mary McNeill has
been appointed Marketing
Director of
Volvo Car
Canada,
responsible for
strategy execution, sales
objective
support,
product
launches, media Volvo Canada
planning, Marketing
Director Mary
event
manage- McNeill.
ment, public relations and
implementation of digital
and social-media strategies.
Previously, she held several senior marketing management posts with Nissan
Canada.

Spinelli Lexus boasts 13 service bays, 40 staff and a
Japanese "takumi" design with barista coffee service.

Management shuffle
at ADESA Canada

Carmel, Indiana-based
ADESA has made changes
to its auction management
teams in Ottawa, Toronto
and Halifax.
Scott Rennie, previously assistant general manager in Toronto, is now general
manager at ADESA Ottawa.
Richard Kennedy is assistant
general manager in Toronto,
moving up from his previous general manager role in
Halifax. James Murphy now
fills the Halifax post.
Also announced was the
launch of ADESA Windsor,
the company's 14th full-service Canadian auction location. Fully renovated, it
includes two lanes, a detail
service and mechanical shop.

New home for Spinelli
Lexus Lachine

With $10 million invested, a new 2,787 square-metre
dealership in west suburban
Montreal is almost triple the
size of its predecessor. Staff
is up too, more than 30 per

cent to 40 employees.
Jennifer Barron, director
of Lexus Canada, says it "is
a perfect fit for everything
Lexus represents."
Close to Montreal's airport, with free valet service,
the new store has 13 service
bays, the latest shop technologies, customer lounge
reflecting Japanese "takumi"
(master craftsmen) design,
barista service, aquarium,
outside terrace, lifestyle boutique and dazzling F Sport
showroom, notes dealer principal Pierre Spinelli.

Porsche premieres
new showroom concept
The first Porsche dealership in North America with
a unique "boutique" layout
has opened in the upscale
Quartier DIX30 mall in
Brossard, Que.
The new-concept 1,886
square-foot (175 square-metre) Porsche South Shore
Showroom, serving
Montreal's south shore,
Monteregie and Sherbrooke

SEE TRANS-CANADA PAGE 10

Automotive News Canada - July 2016

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