Generally, the accepted wisdom on useable fuel cell vehicles is that they are always 15 years away. It has been that way for almost as long as anyone can remember, and while the zero-emissions technology is certainly alluring, the investment and technology needed to make it palatable to customers always seems to be just out of reach.
That could be about to change though, following an alliance between Renault-Nissan, Mercedes and Ford to jointly share development of future fuel cell systems. Mercedes has already committed to having fuel cell cars on sale to the public by 2015 and last year, a trio of fuel-cell powered B-Classes managed a complete round-the-world trip to prove the reliability of the technology.
A fuel cell is a relatively simple thing, and they've been around for more than a century. By chemically combining hydrogen and oxygen to produce water, they generate an electrical current and the only emission at the tailpipe is water vapour. Simple and brilliant, but making them work in a car has proven difficult, and the arguments over creating a hydrogen refueling infrastructure still rage.
“Fuel cell electric vehicles are the obvious next step to complement today's battery electric vehicles as our industry embraces more sustainable transportation,” said Mitsuhiko Yamashita, Member of the Board of Directors and Executive Vice President of Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., supervising Research and Development. “We look forward to a future where we can answer many customer needs by adding FCEVs on top of battery EVs within the zero-emission lineup.
“We are convinced that fuel cell vehicles will play a central role for zero-emission mobility in the future. Thanks to the high commitment of all three partners we can put fuel cell e-mobility on a broader basis. This means with this cooperation we will make this technology available for many customers around the globe,” said Prof. Thomas Weber, Member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG, Group Research & Mercedes-Benz Cars Development.
“Working together will significantly help speed this technology to market at a more affordable cost to our customers,” said Raj Nair, group vice president, Global Product Development, Ford Motor Company. “We will all benefit from this relationship as the resulting solution will be better than any one company working alone.”
Engineering work on both the fuel cell stack and the fuel cell system will be done jointly by the three companies at several locations around the world. The partners are also studying the joint development of other FCEV components to generate even further synergies.
