Hydrogen Power - Daimler F-Cell
November 3, 2008 by admin
Daimler has been testing 60 F-CELL fuel cell vehicles in a vehicle development program throughout the world. It has delivered these to customers in Japan, Singapore, Europe and the United States for trials. Daimler set up maintenance workshops in each country where there were F-CELL trials in order to support fuel cell powered servicing requirements. The German government has approved the installation of a hydrogen fuel infrastructure throughout the country (much like California’s Blueprint) and Daimler will be one of the leading automobile manufacturers for the trials in this project.
The F-CELL is based upon an extended version of the current Daimler A-Class chassis. It has a Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) hydrogen fuel cell that powers the vehicle and provides 72kW (97hp) output power. An electric motor, rated at 65kW (87 hp) drives the front wheels. There are two onboard hydrogen fuel tanks pressurized at 350 bar (5000 psi), and the F-CELL vehicle has a range of 177 km (111 miles) and a top speed of 140 kph (87 mph).
Onboard, the Daimler F-CELL A Class has regenerative braking that provides charging capability when applying the brakes and the vehicle has an energy storage system that works in conjunction with the fuel cell using nickel metal hydride (NiMh) batteries. The entire fuel cell power system for the F-CELL A-Class fits under the vehicle driving compartment and no interior space is lost from the original petrol (gasoline) version.
The following is from a ‘first drive’ account in autobloggreen
Next, we got behind the wheel of the Daimler F-Cell, which is based on the A-Class. Make no mistake, this is a very small car. It’s also pretty cheap and we could definitely sense its economy car roots as we slid behind the wheel. There was an LCD readout that showed where the car’s motor was getting its power from. At a stop, the hydrogen fuel cell reading indicated that 5 percent of its power was powering the car, which could have had something to do with the air conditioning that was running. (It was over ninety-degrees and sunny in Phoenix.) The steering in the F-Cell felt rather heavy and its acceleration felt very weak. The 88-horsepower electric motor is supposed to be able to propel the car to 85 miles per hour, but we’d need to see that to believe it. This definitely seemed like an engineering vehicle more than a car meant to drive. We noted quite a bit of road noise on our short drive through downtown. Still, everything worked as you’d expect from a normal car and we had little problem adjusting ourselves to the car’s unique driving experience.
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