Plug-in Electrics and Fuel Cells: Neck-and-Neck in a Race to the Future

Filed in archive Fuel Cells , Mercedes Benz on February 17, 2010

Everyone is excited about pure electric cars these days - well, almost everyone - and no more so than in the San Francisco area, which is understandable with Silicon Valley just down the road. Any new technology interests those who explore advances in computer science and since green is their favorite color it follows that they'd be among the first to plug in before rolling home. An article in the New York Times Wheels section headlined "San Francisco's Electric Cars Proliferate" focuses on the sudden growth of charging stations in the Bay area... "already a center of the nascent battery-charged economy, thanks to a concentration of Silicon Valley electric car infrastructure startups, as well as companies like Google and Pacific Gas and Electric that are eager for a carbon-free future," says the newspaper.

But is the future really one in which battery-driven cars proliferate? Maybe not, suggests Mercedes-Benz, which has just introduced two fuel cell models in Canada, one of which it claims is "the first production fuel cell electric car." Those words represent a giant step forward from the mostly negative publicity that claims fuel cell cars are still a decade off, if at all. The technology for the system is based on the latest-generation fuel cell stack developed by Vancouver-based AFCC Automotive Fuel Cell Cooperation. It is 40 percent smaller than the previous generation A-Class F CELL, yet develops 30 percent more power while consuming 30 percent less fuel.

These new vehicles offer fast acceleration, high power density, full cargo capacity, low operational costs, quick refueling, and a range of over 250 miles. The key drive components are housed in the sandwich floor in a crash-resistant configuration. The first of two-hundred 2010 B-Class F-CELL vehicles will be placed with customers beginning in the spring of 2010.

The press release that provided most of the information for this article says very little about hydrogen refueling except that "Mercedes-Benz is also actively supporting the establishment of a comprehensive hydrogen infrastructure for the supply of fuel cell vehicles by working closely with energy companies and governments." Perhaps that explains why the F 600 HYGENIUS research car on display at Vancouver's Edgewater Casino is an interesting alternative. Energy that is not required for driving the car is stored in a high-performance lithium-ion battery, thus it operates similar to a hybrid drive system and uses the source of energy which is best-suited to any given driving situation.

Conventional wisdom says we'll be arriving at fuel cell power via two prior stages, the first being plug-in hybrids and the second being pure electrics. But both technologies are moving faster than expected. In the race to the future, who will win?