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Riverside residents now have access to a fleet of vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells, the result of a city-sponsored initiative that is believed to be the first of its kind in the United States.
The Riverside Clean Air Carshare Program provides one dozen of those vehicles for trips within Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange, Los Angeles, Ventura and Imperial counties, said James Delgado, chief operating officer of Mobility Development Operations in Chicago, the program’s designer.
Vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells eliminates hydrocarbons, a major source of air pollution.
Licensed drivers who pay a one-time $20 application fee may drive one of Riverside’s hydrogen powered vehicles for $9 an hour, provided they drive at least one mile. They may also pay $65 and drive for one day.
In both instances, a 50-cent fee plus tax is assessed for every mile above 100 miles.
There are also discount rates for low-income residents, and for individuals who are receiving government assistance.
All 12 vehicles seat up to five people. Dashboards display energy or range levels, and drivers are required to keep vehicle fuel levels above 20 percent during their trip.
Insurance, roadside assistance/maintenance and 24-hour member support are included in the fees. Mobility Development, which has designed clean-air vehicle programs for U.S. cities during its 10 years in business, hopes to get eight to 10 hours of use per day from each car.
The vehicles can only be accessed via the MDO Carshare APP, and all vehicles must have enough energy left in them when they’re returned to travel at least 50 miles.
“That’s our business model,” Delgado said. “We expect people to use the vehicles to visit their doctor, or shop for groceries, or go to a job interview. Besides cleaning up the air, the program will compliment other forms of public transportation in Riverside.”
Riverside’s program is unique, according to Delgado.
“I don’t know of any other city in the United States that uses hydrogen fuel cells when they want to clean up the air,” Delgado said. “They use electric vehicles.”
Riverside hopes to accomplish two things with the carshare program: bring about cleaner air, and help residents in disadvantaged communities by giving them access to affordable high-end transportation technology.
“We’re building a transportation system that reflects our values: innovation, inclusion, and environmental responsibility,” Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson said in a statement. “This program brings those values to life on our streets.”
Riverside decided to use hydrogen fuel vehicles in part because UC Riverside’s Center for Environmental Research and Technology agreed to help produce them.
“This project is a great example of how public-private partnerships can implement real-world transportation solutions,” said Matthew Barth, associate dean for research at UC Riverside’s Bourns College of Engineering. “CE-CERT is proud to support a program that directly benefits the Riverside community while advancing California’s climate goals.”
City officials introduced the program during a ceremony held April 29 in CE- CERT’s parking lot. So far, reaction to the program has been positive, but somewhat restrained because people are still learning about it, according to Delgado.
“The introduction was a little under the radar and it’s only been working for a couple of weeks, so it hasn’t gotten a lot of marketing yet,” Delgado said. “But people seem to be interested. The response we have received has been positive.”
Riverside officials decided to start a clean-air vehicle program about a year and a half ago, after receiving a grant from the California Air Resources Board that made such a move possible.
“The idea has been around for a few years, but the CARB grant is what really got this off the ground,” Delgado said. “They approached us, and we agreed to work them. It makes sense to do this in California, because it has rules that require reducing hydrocarbon emissions.”
California also has 50 operational hydrogen refueling stations – about 10 fewer than it had three years ago – and another 40 that are being planned, according to the California Energy Commission.
That’s enough to justify a program like Riverside’s, but not enough to keep the price of hydrogen fuel down. The cost is the equivalent of $5 to $8 per gallon of gasoline, according to a Car & Driver article published one year ago.
There are approximately 17,000 hydrogen-powered vehicles operating in the United States today, virtually all of them in California.
The biggest obstacle to increasing the number is the lack of enough filling stations to keep them running. But the vehicles themselves have several positives, the first being they produce no harmful emissions.
They’re also a smooth ride, much like an electric automobile, and they’re considered as safe as gas-powered automobiles.
They can also can be refueled in five minutes for a 300-to-400-mile trip, so they don’t have the recharging issue that electric vehicles have, according to the magazine.
The exact cost of Riverside’s program has not been announced, but it’s being paid for by the Clean Mobility Options Pilot Program, which is part of California Climate Investments, a statewide initiative that directs cap-and-trade dollars into projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Funding is also being provided by the California Energy Commission’s Clean Transportation Program, which plans to spend $1 billion to help them develop infrastructure to support clean transportation.
Riverside’s carshare program is scheduled to last four years, but Mobility Development hopes to extend it beyond that.
“We’re going to work on ways to make the program more sustainable, because we want it to last a long-time,” Delgado said. “We’re going to meet with local companies, funding organizations, city and state agencies, to look at ways to continue operating beyond the original funding period.”
