Page - 9 - in Our Car as Power Plant

9 For that reason hybrid cars are entering the market. Electric driving, batteries and an electricity-producing engine using gasoline, diesel or ethanol. But the energy efficiency of the present car engines is not very good, about 25 to 40%. Therefore many car manufacturers are developing the fuel cell car. A PEM fuel cell (Polymer Electrolyte Membrane or Proton Exchange Membrane) that can produce electricity using hydrogen. The efficiency to produce electricity with a PEM fuel cell from hydrogen is about 60%. Of course we have to produce hydrogen, for example by reforming gas into hydrogen. We can produce hydrogen from gas with an efficiency of 70-80%. So, with a fuel cell we can pro- duce electricity from gas with an efficiency of about 45%. This is a higher efficiency than the system efficiency of our electricity production, which is below 40%.