Daimler Ponders Fuel Cell Sedan in Four Years

Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz Cars unit tells Green Car Congress its B-Class fuel cell car is ready for mass production and could be joined by a larger fuel cell-powered sedan, perhaps an E-Class model, in about the 2017 model year.

Daimler began deploying a fleet of 200 leased B-Class F-Cell vehicles in southern California at the end of 2010. The company has 37 vehicles on the road now and is expanding the program to northern California next month.

Each of the front-drive cars is powered by a 136-hp electric motor and liquid-cooled, 1.4-kWh lithium-ion battery. The vehicles, which can be refueled with 25 lbs of compressed hydrogen in three minutes, can accelerate from zero to 60 mph in 11.4 seconds and have a range of about 240 miles.

Sascha Simon, who heads advanced product planning at Mercedes-Benz, tells Green Car Congress he is "completely convinced" that fuel cells could eventually replace IC engines and battery-based electric powertrains. He says a hydrogen infrastructure is the primary hurdle, assuming the current pace of fuel cell cost reduction continues.

The B-Class cars currently in use in California use a second-generation fuel cell stack developed by a Canadian venture involving Daimler, Ford and Ballard Power Systems. The system is 40% smaller, 30% more powerful and 30% more fuel efficient than the first-generation technology. A lower-cost Gen 3 stack is due in 2015, with an even less expensive Gen 4 design due in 2017.

Simon notes that high battery cost will remain a problem for EVs for a decade. He says a pure fuel cell powertrain is already lower in price than a plug-in electric system. He also tells Green Car Congress that fuel cell production is no more difficult than making IC engines.