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Jaguar Exec Calls Hydrogen Fuel Cells “Complete Nonsense”
Don’t expect a fuel cell-powered Jaguar vehicle anytime soon. Wolfgang Ziebart, Jaguar Land Rover Ltd.’s technical design director, dismisses the technology as “complete nonsense,” due to its poor energy efficiency.
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Don’t expect a fuel cell-powered Jaguar vehicle anytime soon. Wolfgang Ziebart, Jaguar Land Rover Ltd.’s technical design director, dismisses the technology as “complete nonsense,” due to its poor energy efficiency.
Ziebart, who headed the development of Jaguar’s I-Pace concept electric vehicle, tells Autocar that the “well-to-wheel” efficiency to produce hydrogen, then compress and cool the fuel to use in a fuel stack is about 30%. By comparison, he says, battery-powered electric vehicles are about 70% energy efficient.
A hydrogen refueling infrastructure could be built relatively quickly if needed, Ziebart says. But with such a “disastrous” well-to-wheel efficiency, he doesn’t see any reason to pursue such a strategy.
Jaguar plans to introduce its first all-electric model by 2018. The company unveiled the I-Pace concept last week at the Los Angeles auto show.
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