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Fuel cells not quite road ready
REUTERS FILE PHOTO
Mercedes-Benz supplies German Chancellor Angela Merkel with a fuel-cell car, but the technology still has enough bugs in it to make her driver leery.
Judging by a sister version I rode in last week in Berlin, it's undoubtedly comfortable, powerful and quiet. But Merkel's chauffeur is reluctant to drive her around in the state-of-the-art vehicle, even though it puts German technological prowess on proud display.
My own driver, Daimler engineer Maurice Heinrich, told me this when I asked why a set of wheels that runs so well remains years from mass sales.
"People ask why they can't have one," Heinrich said. "Something can happen every time out." For example, the cars don't always start. Worse, they abruptly shut down if one of nine sensors on board detects stray hydrogen or some other problem.
Daimler and the four other automakers participating in Germany's fuel cell program, the Clean Energy Partnership, don't want a political leader – or anyone else – stranded by the roadside, so they're being cautious.
About 35 fuel-cell cars and 14 Berlin buses are now on the streets – a small, expensive start to a new technology that promises to transform the auto industry.
The hand-built cells incorporate stacks of very thin membranes. When their construction is mechanized, the cars will be built by the thousands and put in the hands of celebrities for high-profile, pre-production testing. They're to hit the mass market in 2015.
After 400,000 kilometres and 3,000 fillups, the project has shown "hydrogen can be used safely in everyday road transportation," the Partnership says. The goal now is "to prove that (it's) a viable fuel for everyday use."
Germany's Partnership is similar to projects in the U.S. and Japan. In each, competing automakers, supported by energy and technology companies and government funding, co-operate to develop the technology as quickly as possible.
Ford and General Motors are in the American program — with 130 cars on the road — and also involved with Daimler, Volkswagen and BMW in Germany. Canada's fuel cell research is focused on non-car applications.
The vehicles are in competition with all-electric plug-in battery cars, although the technologies are likely to converge in plug-ins that use electricity for initial short distances and fuel cells for longer distances.
A recent report from the U.S. Department of Energy predicts that around 2025, conventional hybrid cars will start to decline and by 2050, almost every car on the road would be hydrogen/electric.
This outlook attracts substantial money. The German government is contributing 500 million euros, about $850 million (U.S.), over 10 years. The American program got $175 million from Washington over five years. In both cases, the companies matched those grants.
"No country wants to be left out," says Keith Wipke, at the National Renewable Energy Lab in Colorado, which runs the U.S. project.
In Germany, each company has its own system, but they share information about problems and solutions. Similar exchanges happen among the national projects.
"For now, we work together. No one knows what the solution will be," says Carsten Retzke, an engineer with Total Germany GmbH, which operates three hydrogen filling stations in Berlin.
The chumminess will end once the cars near mass production, he says.
The research isn't yet affected by the auto industry's financial crisis, an indication that whatever their current straits, companies and governments believe they must be in this game.
Peter Gorrie's trip to study renewable energy in Germany was organized and sponsored by a non-profit organization funded by the German government.
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