Fuel cells

[john p]

Its a know fact that the effeciency of fuel cells is very low. I have had some experience with fuel cells and ended up thinking wat a waste of effort . At work we have now a few cells to experiment with but the amount of electricity used compared to the available output has to be seen to be believed. its really that low..
But there has to be something going for them..
My reason for this statement is When a company like Mercedes Benz is investing heavily in fuel cell technology you just have to take notice.. Mercedes Benz are smart opperators and dont do something for no good reason.
I coppied this article from a review of some of the highlights of a recent Germany auto show.

The Mercedes-Benz F125 is a research vehicle, a distillation of different technologies being developed by the German automaker. Mercedes-Benz says the F125 represents what cars could look like in 15 years, two generations of vehicle development. The F125 is driven by electric motors at each wheel, getting electricity from a fuel cell stack and lithium sulfate battery pack.

The drive system for the F125 builds on Mercedes-Benz's extensive research into hydrogen fuel cell technology. The car has high strength hydrogen cells integrated into its body shell. These feed a fuel cell stack that converts hydrogen to electricity for the wheel-mounted electric motors. There is also a lithium sulfate battery pack, new technology being researched by Mercedes-Benz, to capture regenerative braking energy. This drive system gives the F125 a range of more than 600 miles.
Certainly an impressive range figure 600 miles.

So is there a future in energy storage for fuel cells??

[Sunking]

Its a know fact that the effeciency of fuel cells is very low. I have had some experience with fuel cells and ended up thinking wat a waste of effort . At work we have now a few cells to experiment with but the amount of electricity used compared to the available output has to be seen to be believed. its really that low..
But there has to be something going for them..
My reason for this statement is When a company like Mercedes Benz is investing heavily in fuel cell technology you just have to take notice.. Mercedes Benz are smart opperators and dont do something for no good reason.
I coppied this article from a review of some of the highlights of a recent Germany auto show.

It is pure politics John. The largest market for new cars in the USA is California. The State of California requires Auto Manufactures to offer ZERO emission models, or else they cannot sell new cars in the state of California period...

[john p]

Sunking while that is true. It still seems MB is a quantum leap ahead of anyone else in the world in their development. They seen to have found ways to store and intergrate the storage into the bodywork of the vehicle, no mean feat. Also a range of over 600 miles is by anyones standard a looong way.
To give some comparison we have some experimental cells at work total size about a cubic metre(10cubic ft) mounted on a remote controlled trolley total weight about 360kg(800lbs) its range about 20klm (12miles) and it takes about half a day to get it fully functioning.I dont know its exact cost but it was im told about $80,000. I see it as useless..despite the fantastic claims from its manufacturer.. sorry ,,cant give the manufacturers name.not allowed. Now compare that to what MB have.

[Sunking]

Sunking while that is true. It still seems MB is a quantum leap ahead of anyone else in the world in their development.

Not really John with respect to Fuel Cell cars. Honda has had the FCX model in California for 5 years now. Honda even sells a home refueling station that you connect to a natural gas supply to fill their car with hydrogen.

All the EV and hydrogen cars you see being released now are to fulfill the Calaphonies ZERO EMISSION Requirement. Don't get me wrong, MB makes good vehicles, but they are far from the leader in technology IMHO

[Wy_White_Wolf]

...It still seems MB is a quantum leap ahead of anyone else in the world in their development. They seen to have found ways to store and intergrate the storage into the bodywork of the vehicle, no mean feat. Also a range of over 600 miles is by anyones standard a looong way...

Not really. It's a concept car that shows what they would like to see happen in the next 2 car generations. Just take an indepth look into the original volt concept and what was accually produced. They aren't even close and the concept volt never contained the features that they "claimed" it had. MB does the same thing.

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