Disney Tests Chevrolet's Fuel Cell Cars

Well, it's official, according to a November 14 press conference at the Los Angeles Auto Show. Chevrolet and Disney have tied the knot in a partnership called Project Runwa....scratch that, Project Driveway.

It seems that Disney's Los Angeles offices are to take delivery of no less than 10 Chevrolet Equinox fuel-cell vehicles, using them for, among other things, "shuttling celebrity talent."

Ten of these Chevrolet fuel-cell Equinoxes are headed for Disney.

Honda has also allowed a pair of its FCX fuel-cell cars out in public, though its project is somewhat more low-key. One went to an actual normal family, the Spallinos, who reportedly have logged several thousand miles in shopping trips and soccer practice runs. "Despite being a developing technology, we have not suffered from any reliability issues and the car has all the comforts and conveniences we need," John Spallino says.

The keys to the other Honda were handed to a bonafide celebrity, though: Q'orianka Kilcher, Pocahontas to Colin Farrell's Captain John Smith in The New World.

Q'orianka Kilcher with her Honda FCX

Who should get the Disney cars? There's no stretch limo version, so CEO Robert A. Iger is probably out. I vote for the lovely Hannah Montana, who is after all the biggest Disney celebrity talent of all! Perhaps one of these zero-emission SUVs will be reserved for her alone, though the hydrogen tank pressurized to 10,0000 pounds per square inch located under her seat might give prudent company executives some pause.

After all, Hannah Montana may not be a real person, but she is an incredible cash cow, and memories of the Hindenburg are still fresh in certain circles. Front-row tickets to Hannah's December 27 show at Nassau Coliseum are going for $3,660 a pair (and subject to escalation). Her #1 album has sold more than five million copies.

If Montana (a/k/a Miley Cyrus) even sits in an Equinox it will get the car onto a million fan sites. If she pronounces it "cool" the hydrogen energy economy is set. But let's be realistic. Other sometime Disney properties who might be more easily spared for zero emission shuttling purposes include Hilary Duff (yesterday's Hannah Montana), plus other incandescent stars Aly and AJ, Jesse McCartney, Christy Carlson Romano, Ricky Ullman and Skye Sweetnam.

Hannah Montana: a Chevy hydrogen car in her future?

For the 30-month program, Chevy is testing hundreds of the fuel-cell Equinox cars in LA, Washington, DC and suburban New York. It's unclear if political celebrities will be in the driver's seat for the Washington test, but we can certainly think of some Senators and Congresspeople we'd like to see take the Equinox to its limits.