DOE Report Praises Fuel Cell Advances

Fuel cell-powered vehicles have made impressive advances in the past seven years and are likely to go into limited production in 2014-2015, according to the U.S. Dept. of Energy.

DOE presents its assessment in a 102-page analysis called National Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Learning Demonstration Final Report. The study reviews results on a California-based project sometimes known as the Controlled Hydrogen Fleet and Infrastructure Validation and Demonstration Project that ran from 2004 to 2011.

The program involved 183 vehicles built by Daimler, Ford, General Motors and Hyundai-Kia. Other participants included Air Products, BP, Chevron, Shell and UTC Power.

By the time the project ended, the vehicles had made 500,000 trips, covered 3.6 million miles and consumed about 152,000 kg of hydrogen dispensed from 25 project fueling stations. The cars were measured against three key DOE performance targets: a 250-mile driving range, 2,000-hour fuel cell durability and a hydrogen production cost equivalent to $3-per-gallon gasoline.

First- and second-generation vehicles in the program averaged 42-57 miles per kilogram of hydrogen and 43-58 mi/kg, respectively, on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's adjusted fuel economy city/highway test cycle. Average driving range grew from at 100-190 miles in first-generation models to 196-254 miles in second-generation vehicles.

The report says the test fleet met DOE's 2,000-hour durability target. The analysis also concludes that fueling stations could generate hydrogen for as little as $2.75/kg at volumes of 1,500 kg/day.

The DOE project set fuel system power density goals of 650 W/kg. The agency says first-generation vehicles ranged from 183 W/kg to 323 W/kg; second-generation systems improved to a range of 306-406 W/kg.

DOE says the test vehicles achieved overall system efficiency of 53%-59% at one-quarter power and 42%-53% efficiency at full power. The agency's goals were 60% and 50%, respectively.

Click HERE to view the entire DOE report.