"Charging" is frequently used as the word for refilling a tank with a gas under pressure. The use of the word for batteries is a recent innovation.

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Check this out for some videos on how to fuel/charge the hydrogen tank on your vehicle:
http://www.h2andyou.org/videos.asp

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The amount of energy that gets you 12,000 miles in your EV would only get you 4K in a hydrogen fuel cell car. Might as well keep your EV.

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But any hydrogen fuel cell system requires a carbon-fiber storage tank as expensive as a vehicle for any decent range (700 bar)

Industry has been working with carbon-fiber for decades and it is still not cheap enough to use in a mass-market vehicle.

The nature of a PEM fuel cell also means it relies heavily on precious metals.

There's no chance a 6-figure fuel cell range extender will decline in price enough to match the few thousand dollar cost of a ICE range extender (gasoline, diesel, or E85) within the next decade.

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I don't understand the assumed conflict between EV cars and fuel cells.
In some advanced configurations such as lithium air batteries the issue is moot in any case.
But even before that, let's look at combining the two concepts.
A battery car and fuel cells go together quite naturally, unlike combining them with an ICE engine and associated paraphenalia.
So let's say the Volt has the Daimler fuel cell instead of an ICE engine.
From the hybrid POV you have immediately thrown out a lot of equipment, whilst from the fuel cell POV you have greatly lessened the need for hydrogen infrastructure, and radically reduced it's cost.
So, Glen, if you take your figure of 12,000 stations needed, you would vastly reduce that for cars with a 40 mile all electric range.
I would argue that in any case one should not be piping tricky hydrogen around the place, but reforming natural gas on the spot.
Hopefully at some stage solid oxide fuel cells will come to the fore, rather than PEM's, and all sorts of fuel could then be used.
Fuel cells and batteries are complementary technologies, and indeed are so closely related that it is difficult to conceive that they could flourish in isolation.
They remedy the defects in each other.

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@Blencoe
You argue that this car must be cheap because it is a small car and totally disregard the cost of the fool cell drivetrain. That is like saying a computer with gold plated components must be cheap because the case is small.

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Bill,
These debates about fuel cells here confuse me.
The points you make have some substance, but surely you don't think that the engineers at Daimler, or the equally smart ones at Toyota and Honda, aren't aware of the issues they have to overcome?
I note that the car in this article seems to have overcome two of the traditional problems with fuel cell cars, short range and difficulty stating in cold temperatures.
I think the the engineers at the companies who are developing fuel cell cars and who have said that they can see bringing them out fairly soon have a fair idea of how they intend to overcome the remaining hassles.
Toyota in particular said that they managed to greatly reduce costs in their last iteration, and if they hadn't reduced use of precious metals considerably that would not have been possible.
On board reformers and solid oxide cells are two possible alternative approaches, although they are less mature than hydrogen and PEMs.

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"Based on the Yahoo! finance currency converter, this is equivalent today to US$27,479.
Therefore, once a few thousand dollars is added for the hybrid system in the hydrogen fuel cell version, the mass-produced cost would only be slightly above the US$30,000 level."

you think a carbon fiber hydrogen storage tank and nice chunk of platinum only add a few thousand to the price?? you obviously know NOTHING about the cars you're constantly spamming this board about.

"I note that the car in this article seems to have overcome two of the traditional problems with fuel cell cars, short range and difficulty stating in cold temperatures."

Since when did hydrogen fuel cell cars have short range? Apparently they didn't overcome the two actual problems holding back fuel cells: insanely prohibitive cost (hence the tiny lease-only 200 production #) and a non-existent fueling infrastructure.

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@David Martin
Sure, the hydrogen range extender idea is a good idea to have both technologies work together, but there is no indication any automaker is going this route. It doesn't seem likely for them to combine two expensive technologies into one at the same time. And for many of us here, we want to plug-in. Hydrogen most likely means no plug-in option and the same station-based fueling as before. Remember, the automakers scrapped BEV programs with the excuse of developing hydrogen.

As for whether the engineers are convinced hydrogen (or BEVs for that matter) will replace the ICE in the near future? It's a solid NO. From the article:
"Mercedes-Benz views the development of electric cars with battery and fuel cell drives for local zero-emission driving as a means of supplementing vehicles with high-tech internal combustion engines. Advanced diesel and petrol engines will remain important for automotive applications for a long time to come - not only for individual mobility in passenger cars - especially over long distances - but, more importantly, for freight transport in trucks. Electric vehicles, on the other hand, will increasingly be used in urban transport."

So Bill seems to be correct that the ICE is likely to stay as the primary range extender for a while.

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@David Martin
"I don't understand the assumed conflict between EV cars and fuel cells."
The conflict is between batteries and fuel cells. They both perform the same function: energy storage. You can take a HFCV and swap out the fuel cell (+ tanks...) for a battery and vice versa. They are directly competing technologies. While there is nothing to say that they can't coexist, they are still competing for the same funding and market.

@Greg Blencoe
The question still remains: Why hydrogen?
Assuming the car companies can get the fuel cell prices down enough to compete with batteries and some one builds the multi-billion dollar hydrogen infostructure, is it worth more than tripling your fuel costs to reduce charging time when you can charge overnight in your own garage?

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"annual production of the new vehicles would have to reach 100,000" - but Daimler only plans 200, a number to match the 200 planned for the FCX Clarity. Of course they've got it backwards, Daimler won't produce 1,000, let along 100,000 F-Cells unless the price comes down enough to make it competitive. Daimler got just enough Government subsidies to cover that 200 prototype production run, but even the Government can't afford to subsidize large production volumes.

The B-class is a basic model, and it's price does not reflect the cost of fuel cells or H2 storage or hybrid batteries, so quoting the current price of a standard internal combustion engine driven B-Class and implying that reflects the cost of the F-Cell is very misleading. No way are you going to get the H2 carbon fiber tanks, let alone the fuel cell and batteries and motor, for a mere $2,521. Maybe 100x that, perhaps, if they use a seriously underpowered system.

I noticed Blencoe didn't mention the 250 mile range, he prefers to crow about the record breaking runs instead. But it does show that H2FCVs don't necessarily have much more range than high end EVs.

So why does Daimler and Toyota and so many others mention "2015" as the big introduction year? Because that was the year the DOE targeted for formal introduction, so they all play along to get those government grants. Don't be suprised if the "big introduction" gets delayed yet again, Honda is hinting at a possible delay until 2018, and GM may be delaying til 2020 due to financial problems.

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Jake,
You are quite right that two ideas at an early stage of development such as battery cars and fuel cells would not be combined in prototype, but once they are in fuller production synergies may be used, and fuel cells and batteries go together very well.
The process is further advanced in trucks, where for instance Volvo is looking at a wide variety of combinations of batteries and fuel cells, together with on-board reformers.
Space and weight are less of a constraint for this application, whilst range is important, but advances made in this application will feed through to cars.
I also read their statement that:
'Electric vehicles, on the other hand, will increasingly be used in urban transport.'
to mean that they see electric cars of both fuel cell and battery variety as the urban and shorter range variety as complementary to longer range ICE vehicles.
I disagree with them about ICE for long range, as I feel that fuel will be more constrained than they anticipate.

Sean,
this feeds into the second point I am trying to make, that what we are experiencing is an advance across a broad front in applying electrics to cars, and it is too early to pick winners.
The major car companies, whilst they have different emphasises, are spreading their bets widely.
At the moment you can't really do long range with batteries, so I favour supplementing with fuel cells, if the technology matures sufficiently.

polo,
It is only in the latest generation of hydrogen cars that range issues have come under control - previously they were having to take out the rear seats and all sorts.
For progress in reducing costs, see the latest Toyota announcements etc - they are not there yet, but they are getting close, and the costs are no longer totally out of sight.
Unless you have other accredited information you can share to discount this?

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What are you smoking? They're only producing 200 of these, strictly for LEASE sales. A conservative estimate would be at least a $30million loss for these 200 hydrogen fuel cell cars, but as a PR move its actually a pretty cheap way to boost your green cred. And unless you're a celeb or famous figure you don't even have a chance of looking at a lease. keep dreaming.

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polo,
That's how prototypes work, whether it is for fuel cell cars or vacuum cleaners.
The target for Toyota, Honda and Daimler is around 2015 for fairly economical production versions.
But what do their engineering departments know? :-)

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