Want to get a chance to drive the hydrogen-powered Chevy Equinox Fuel Cell for free, all expenses paid for three months? Well, if you’re really passionate about alternative automotive fuel sources, creating less of an environmental impact with your car and you live or work in metropolitan New York City, Washington, D.C. or southern California you could be chosen for Project Driveway. This project is the first of its kind to put real drivers in real-world situations in a large-scale market test of fuel cell electric vehicles.

Within minutes of arriving at our hotel in LA we were whisked over to the convection center where we were able to get a hands-on look at the Chevy Equinox Fuel Cell and even got to drive it on actual LA streets, not some weak obstacle course in a parking lot. Driving the car felt an awful lot like driving any other car, and I think that was GM’s goal. It didn’t smell funny, there was no crazy steering wheel or driver controls and it didn’t fly. However it did make a unique air-blowing noise from the back when it first started, but no sounds reminiscent of the Jetsons.

From a driving standpoint there were really only a few noticeable differences between the Fuel Cell and the regular gas-guzzling Chevy Equinox with the most obvious being the refueling of the car. It does obviously require the special hydrogen fuel, which also dictates just how far the test drivers can currently go with it. Also, when refueling not only does the pump have be connected to the car but also an electronic multi-pin connection behind the license plate must also be made to feed information from the pump to the car about things like the ambient temperature in order to properly fill the hydrogen tanks. GM says that this will later replaced with wireless infrared.

Also inside the car the main display in the dashboard features a graphical representation of the Propulsion System, showing where power is being placed and taken from while you’re driving, (and you thought talking on your cell phone while driving was distracting). Something else we didn’t notice until reviewing our photos was that the RPM gauge, or so we thought, really isn’t an RPM gauge. Since this car is electric there really is no RPM’s from an engine negating the need to measure it. Instead, as you can see through our classic grainy spy-shot photo, it’s actually a kilowatt gauge which moves just like an RPM gauge might and takes its place next to the speedometer. There is no gear shifting as you accelerate or decelerate since there is no transmission. One direct drive train brings you up to the max speed of 100 mph.

I also had the opportunity to talk to David Shelton of Irvine, California; one of the lucky handful that have already been chosen for Project Driveway out of the 100 planned test drivers. Shelton, like us, is a long time victim of technophilia and has agreed to provide occasional insider feedback to us here at the ‘Brick during his 3-month trial with the Fuel Cell. He gets his hands on one starting sometime in January so we’ll be posting some updates on that in a couple months. And as far as rules, GM has basically just asked David “not to break it” and they’ll handle the rest.

We’re really looking forward to tomorrow which brings the first of two days of announcements that we’ll be covering live from the LA Auto Show, starting off with a keynote speech from Alan Mulally, CEO of Ford Motor Company.