On Course for the Real World - Fuel-Cell Vehicles Tested in Every Day Life
Until 2007, several customers are taking part in a project to test 60 F-Cell A-Classes under everyday operating conditions in Asia, North America and Europe. One of these customers is the car pool of the Federal Chancellery in Berlin.
A Mercedes-Benz A-Class "F-Cell" in front of the Federal Chancellery.
Stuttgart, Germany, November 29, 2004
However, it’s no accident that the F-Cell should be parked in front of the command center of German politics. Dr. Ewold Seeba, Director of Department 1 in the Chancellor’s Office, is responsible for the vehicle fleet. As he explains: “If we don’t start trying to reconcile our demand for universal mobility with the need to protect the climate, we’ll have no globally applicable alternative to the car in the coming decade. In other words, we should be taking steps now to prepare new technologies for market launch. The future needs pioneers.” | ||||||||
And the innovative vehicle will certainly have to pull its weight. “We’ll definitely be putting it through its paces,” predicts Seeba. For example, the F-Cell will be used as often as possible for conveying passengers through Berlin’s government district. Moreover, there are also plans to use it to shuttle dignitaries to the government’s new guest quarters in Schloss Meseberg, which is located 60 kilometers away on Lake Gran. “Innovation is what enables us to meet the challenges of the future,” says Seeba. “And guests from abroad will be able to see this in practice.”
In the F-Cell, Ewold Seeba will shuttle dignitaries to and from the government’s guest quarters.
And then, with a twinkle in his eye, the senior government official abandons protocol for a minute to give a personal testimony of his experience with the F-Cell: “At the traffic light, you can leave a sports car standing over the first 40 meters.” And, commenting on the overall performance of the F-Cell, he adds: “If you’re not careful, you can pick up a lot of speeding tickets.” However, Seeba rapidly returns to the issue in hand: “What we particularly liked about the project was the fact that DaimlerChrysler doesn’t impose any conditions on the use of the vehicle. It’s a proper field trial and not just a PR stunt, otherwise we would never even have considered taking part.”
Testing more than just the cars
The project’s scope and logistical depth provide an indication of just how seriously the engineers at DaimlerChrysler are approaching the F-Cell field trial. All in all, a total of 60 vehicles are being used by drivers in four regions around the world. The trials, which are scheduled to last between one and two years, are being conducted in normal road driving conditions. The plan is for each vehicle to complete 16,000 kilometers (10,000 miles) and clock 500 operating hours a year. This will amount to a cumulative operating performance of 1.9 million kilometers and a running time of 60,000 hours — far more road experience than any other rival manufacturer will have managed to accumulate with a fuel cell automobile over the same period of time. | ||||||||
The project got under way in fall 2003, and the last of the 60 F-Cell vehicles are scheduled to hit the road in the middle of next year. Come 2007, it will be time to take stock and analyze the results. The following represents a summary of the current status of the project.
More than 30 vehicles are scheduled for tests in the U.S. While a number of them will be based in the Detroit region, the majority are destined for Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento in California. One of the first pilot customers in the U.S. is the global shipping company UPS.
30 fuel cell vehicles have to prove themselves on US-American highways.
Several F-Cell vehicles are scheduled to undergo trials in the Tokyo area. Among the first test partners are the tire manufacturer Bridgestone and the gas supplier Tokyo Gas. Via its participation in the Japanese Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Demonstration Project (JHFC), likewise an alliance between the public and private sectors, DaimlerChrysler is involved in both vehicle tests and infrastructure projects in the region.
A similar number of vehicles are destined for Singapore, where they will be tested by the country’s environmental agency as well as Michelin, Lufthansa, BP and the Conrad Hotel, each of which will use one F-Cell. The vehicle trials in Singapore are being conducted under the aegis of the Sinergy-EDB Fuel Cell Program.
Finally, a total of ten F-Cell vehicles will take to the road in Berlin. Alongside the Chancellor’s Office, other early test partners include Deutsche Telekom and the power supply company Bewag Vattenfall. A hydrogen filling station for the public is currently being built by Aral on the Messedamm. Moreover, Mercedes World on the Salzufer has now opened Europe’s first service workshop for fuel cell vehicles, complete with specially trained technicians. The Berlin F-Cell vehicles are part of the Clean Energy Partnership. The project’s aim is to demonstrate the everyday practicality of hydrogen-fueled mobile applications and gauge the levels of customer acceptance.
