23 Jun 08
Dr Christian Mohrdieck, who heads the fuel cell engineering project at Mercedes-Benz, talked to 4Car recently about the possibilities of actually driving cars powered by hydrogen.
'Obviously we have the hydrogen B-Class planned for 2010 but we want to have hydrogen fuel cell cars in production by 2012-2015 - but it will be a limited number of cars,' he said.
'It will be a slow process, but the will is there. The UK has been pretty slow about hydrogen and, to be fair, so has France. Japan, however, has been much more aggressive and has hydrogen refuelling stations in Toyko - they are very motivated about taking this technology forward.'
Despite what seems to a be a lack of interest in member countries, the European community appears to be taking hydrogen cars seriously, stumping up €500m in grants purely for research and development in this area. However, there are other fuels fighting for attention and it appears car manufacturers and oil companies are reluctant to spend billions of pounds developing fuels that could be redundant in 10 to 20 years' time.
Dr Mohrdieck says biofuels, for example, are an intermediate step and they will bridge the current dependence on fossil fuels and the future, where cars will be powered by hydrogen and electricity.
'We need both (electric cars and hydrogen-fuelled cars) depending on the application,' added Dr Mohrdieck. 'For city driving, electric power is ideal, but the range is limited. Currently, the great thing about petrol or diesel is that you can fill up and go anywhere at any time. With electric power you have to allow time to charge up the battery. That's why hydrogen-powered cars are so important for long trips.'
