FEB 23

Automakers Ford, Daimler, and Renault-Nissan are joining forces to develop the technology for fuel cell vehicles and to make it more cost effective. Investments in the research will be spread evenly among the companies, who hope their alliance will produce a fuel cell system to power new electric vehicles that can travel further between refuels than the battery electric vehicles currently available on the market. Furthermore, Ford aims to have a hydrogen fuel cell car on the mass market in as little as four years.

Sharing both research and resources, this new partnership gives the trio a chance to do what no single motor vehicle company has done yet: craft a mass market hydrogen-powered vehicle. Costs have been too high so far to make this possible. If they succeed, however, it could be a step forward in reducing our dependence on oil to fuel our travels. The hydrogen fuel cell technology also promises less pollution than fossil fuels produce, as hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicles only emit heat and water vapor.

The companies have a combined 60 years of experience working on this technology, and their test vehicles have gone over 6.2 million miles. The engineering work ahead for the partnership will be spread throughout their worldwide facilities. The companies will also work to develop other parts for fuel-cell powered vehicles, in addition to the individual fuel cell development, in order to reduce costs further.

image: CC BY-SA 2.0 by Lars Plougmann

via: Huffington Post

Comments (6)

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Will this finally catch on?
written by Luke P, February 26, 2013

Hydrogen cars are a great idea, and I can't wait to see what comes of this partnership! the only thing that worries me is will consumers actually buy them? Everyone knows that some hybrids (I'm looking at you, Prius) aren't exactly the most cool or desirable things to have out on the road, even if they are cost efficient. Would there be any pull for these H2 vehicles? I sure hope so.

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Catching on
written by Bill, February 26, 2013

Even though the prius isn't good looking or fun to drive it does sell.
The Prius is sold in almost 80 countries and regions. Global sales of all Prius family vehicles totaled 3.3 million units from 1997 through October 2012.
Toyota Prius is best selling car in California.
Nationally, the Prius comes in 12th on the best-selling-vehicle list (in the US) during the same period, according to Autodata Corp.

I had one and you couldn't deny getting 45mpg was nice.

BMW & Honda already have working Hydrogen models. Hopefully the added competition will speed things up in all aspects. I'm excited.

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Broken links
written by Jostikas, February 26, 2013

Links in the article are broken. They're evaluated as local pages, not absolute URL-s.

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...
written by Todd Lichtenwalter, March 02, 2013

How does this concept compare to the Better Place model of running the vehicles on 'green' electrons-fuel obtained by non-fossil fuel means such as wind, solar, geothermal. If the electrolysis is generated with coal, natural gas or petro then it does not really address the issue of needing to avoid adding more green house gases.

How can 'fuel cells" compete economically with electric cars when you consider the loss of efficiency due to the intermediary step of the energy used in splitting water and also of transporting the hydrogen fuel all over the place as compared to electric cars which have the advantage of sending "fuel" through the power grid and 2 minute swap stations (Better Place) where refueling is faster ans safer than combustible hydrogen.

Seems quite the puffed up chest talk of Ford saying they will have this consumer ready en mass in 4 years time. Either way, the goal is the end of oil for transport and so unless the tankers and trucks transporting the hydrogen fuel all over the place are running on electric engines as well then I don't see how this is such a great thing. And when you run the projected cost per mile numbers into the future, I don't see how this fuel source can compete in the long term with EVs

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@Todd - Better place
written by Susan, March 06, 2013

Better Place has pulled out of the market in the US and Australia, so it is pointless to compare anything with Better Place because they didn't have the guts to do anything but talk and spend other folk's money.

You also don't understand how fuel cells work. They don't work by electrolysis!!

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RE: Will this Finally Catch On?
written by 2ndGreenRevolution Blog, March 08, 2013

My 2 cents: Fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) have been "around the corner" for many years, and I think that will continue to be the case for some time. The technology has arrived, but is too expensive for mass market. On top of that, the infrastructural cost would also be huge. There are over 1,000 miles of H2 pipeline around the country, but it's limited to just a handful of states. Charging stations are few and still very expensive. And on a large scale, we'd have to develop hydrogen storage capacity along with an environmentally-friendly way of producing it. Do we get it from renewable sources via electrolysis, or separate it from non-renewable fossil fuels? These questions and many more have yet to unfold on a commercial scale anywhere in the world.

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