DaimlerChrysler showing B-Class fuel cell vehicle at SAE Congress
At the DaimlerChrysler booth at this years SAE World Congress, one of the vehicles on display is a cutaway of the latest generation Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-Cell. I spoke to DCX representative Scott Freeman for a few minutes to get a rundown of the latest generation of DCX fuel cell vehicle. The B-Class is a tall wagon-type vehicle sold in Europe. The latest fuel cell B-class has the entire fuel cell system located under the floor and doesn't detract from normal interior volume.
The Ballard Power Systems fuel cell stack sits under the front seats and although details were not being disclosed it is likely the same type used in the HySeries Drive Ford Edge. Further back, under the rear seats are a pair of compressed hydrogen storage tanks. The tanks store gaseous hydrogen at 10,000 psi which seems to be the level that many car-makers are converging on as a pressure that allows them to store a reasonable amount of hydrogen in the minimum space. While Scott said that the B-Class has a range of 250 miles, he declined to state how much H2 was being stored on board.
Under the cargo area is a lithium ion battery pack, that works to provide transient power to supplement the fuel cell stack under acceleration and heavy load conditions. The B-Class basically works as a parallel hybrid and has no plug-in capability at this time. Currently there are about thirty of these vehicles in use in Europe and North America including one that is being used by campus police at Wayne State University in Detroit.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tim 6:39PM (4/17/2007)
We know that storing electricity in batteries is 4X more efficient than storing electricity in Hydrogen. The “hydrogen economy” is big oil’s way to promote the status-quo which is to change our addiction from oil to natural gas reformed into hydrogen. The laws of physics dictate that this car will become a very expensive museum piece. The waste of time, money and energy on this Hydrogen lunacy is appalling!
Here are the facts:
http://www.physorg.com/news85074285.html http://www.oilcrash.com/articles/h_scam.htm
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PeakVT 11:14PM (4/17/2007)
Hydrogen is a dead end as long as most of it comes from reformed natural gas, the supply of which is likely to fall off a cliff in North American in the next decade.
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Art 7:26PM (5/03/2007)
Gasoline cars are only 14% efficient, all that engine heat is gas being converted to a NON-PRODUCTIVE USE, its WASTE heat.....Fuel Cells use what remains of our fossil fuels MORE EFFICENTLY.
Think of it as getting 3 or 4 times a bang for your buck as compared to a gasoline/biofuel ICE.
Ponder that and realize what is going on here and why this technology wont be in a museum anytime soon.
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Chris M 3:14AM (5/04/2007)
Art, the problem isn't the fuel cell, the big problem is the hydrogen fuel. H2 fuel is bulky and expensive and inefficient to produce.
Converting methane to H2, compressing it, and then using the H2 in a fuel cell car would consume about as much methane per mile as running a compressed methane IC car, due to the energy losses in conversion - and the H2 fuel cell method is far more costly.
There are high efficiency fuel cells that can operate directly on methane or other hydrocarbon fuels, bypassing the H2 conversion step - but they currently are not suitable for automotive use.
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