Faurecia Targets Fuel Cell Applications

Faurecia SA expects fuel cell vehicles to account for 2% of new vehicle sales worldwide by 2030. By that time, the French company aims to be a leading supplier of fuel cell components, including stacks, regulators and hydrogen tanks.

To support the anticipated growth, Faurecia has formed partnerships with three other French companies: Ad-Venta, an onboard hydrogen engineering firm; CEA (France’s Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission); and Stelia Aerospace Composites, which was created in January 2015 by the merger of two former Airbus business units.

Working with Stelia, Faurecia recently won its first fuel cell-related contract. The partners will supply a hydrogen storage tank for an unnamed low-volume passenger car fleet early next decade.

Stelia currently supplies hydrogen tanks for aerospace applications. Faurecia will provide its high-volume automotive expertise. This includes lightweighting techniques, such as switching from steel to plastic liners and reducing tank wall thickness from 25 mm to 20 mm. Such improvements promise to increase fuel utilization from about 6% of the weight of the overall tank to as much as 8% in the future, Faurecia says.

The company is working with Ad-Venta on pressure valves and regulators for hydrogen tanks. Faurecia aims to eventually integrate these components into the inside of the tank.

Last September Faurecia signed a five-year agreement with CEA to develop next-generation fuel cell stacks. The program aims to use less expensive stainless steel plates in place of current plastic/composite units in fuel cell stacks. Thanks to its exhaust systems business, Faurecia is the largest buyer of stainless steel worldwide.