General Motors Corporation and Exxon Mobil Corporation XOM announced today that
they have developed a highly-efficient gasoline fuel processor for fuel cell vehicles.
The companies said that the processor is a major breakthrough that will lead to
greatly reduced emissions and improved fuel economy. GM plans a vehicle demonstration
using this technology within 18 months.

The processor uses gasoline as a fuel to create a high-quality stream of hydrogen
that powers a fuel cell. For consumers this means they will be able to fuel
these new vehicles the same way they fuel their present cars. GM researchers
and engineers believe that the gasoline processor is a key to fuel cell production
this decade.

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“The gasoline processor could be the bridge between today’s conventional
vehicles and tomorrow’s hydrogen fuel cell vehicles,” said Harry J. Pearce,
GM Vice Chairman. “While we view hydrogen as the future fuel for automotive
applications, we have significant commercial challenges, such as designing and
building a large number of hydrogen refueling stations, developing feasible
on-board fuel tanks and agreeing to industry-wide specifications.”

GM and ExxonMobil said that the results of a three-year collaborative research
program has allowed GM and ExxonMobil engineers to design, develop, build and
run a gasoline processor that exceeds 80 percent efficiency. By the end of this
year, GM will demonstrate in a laboratory an integrated system with an advanced
version of this processor and a GM fuel cell stack producing 25 kW.

GM selected the 25 kW system as a learning platform. The 25 kW system begins
to approach the overall efficiency requirements for automotive use and will
foster development of future automotive and stationary fuel cell systems. Peak
fuel cell system efficiency is expected to achieve nearly 40 percent in this
early generation design. The system will integrate GM’s proprietary designs
in gasoline processing and fuel cell stacks.

“We’ve addressed an important technical challenge and done what others
thought wasn’t possible,” said Larry D. Burns, GM Vice President for Research
and Development, in announcing the development here today. “Consumers want
practical solutions. Fuel cells based on gasoline make use of an existing infrastructure,
and mean that cleaner, more efficient vehicles can be in consumers’ hands within
the next 10 years. This breakthrough demonstrates the power of collaboration
between the petroleum and auto industries.”

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“Together with GM, we have been able to distinguish ourselves as leaders
in the fields of hydrocarbon processors and fuel cells. This is a direct result
of combining the unique capabilities of the petroleum and automotive industries.
Continuing to improve the performance of hydrocarbons in vehicle transportation
systems is one of ExxonMobil’s major business strategies and priorities,”
said Bill Innes, President of ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company.

ExxonMobil and GM signed an agreement in 1998 to conduct research on hardware
and fuel options for next generation vehicles. The collaboration has resulted
in several important breakthroughs to speed the development of a gasoline processor
to provide hydrogen for a fuel cell powered vehicle.

Other breakthroughs resulting from the ExxonMobil and GM research alliance
include:

–A unique transient reactor unit which allows testing of
gasoline processors from zero to full power and test the
quality of the generated hydrogen fuel.

–An advanced set of system dynamic models (computer code) to
accelerate the development and testing of fuel processor
system prototypes.

–Advanced models for coupling chemical kinetics and fluid
dynamics. These models allow for detailed studies of
processor/fuel interactions.

–Use of state-of-the-art computational fluid dynamics for the
development and design of primary reactor inlet systems. This
approach has resulted in significant improvements in reactor
performance compared with early prototypes.

— ExxonMobil and GM are combining knowledge of fuels and
gasoline processor system design to accelerate prototype
development, identify critical fuel properties and aid in the
selection of optimized combinations of fuel and processor
which can increase efficiency and reduce size and complexity.

Burns said that the gasoline processor running today is GM’s second-generation
design, with a third planned shortly. With each generation, GM has reduced system
size and weight while improving efficiency. The next generation fuel cell system
fueled by gasoline will be half the size and half the weight of the current
generation.

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