Mercedes-Benz has decided to open up a new fuel cell production facility in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Vancouver is the site of one leg of the current British Columbia Hydrogen Highway system. In the future, it is also supposed to be part of the West Coast Hydrogen Highway system that will run all the way down to San Diego, California.
Daimler is currently testing a number of Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-CELL cars in California. By 2012, Daimler expects to be leasing 70 of these serial production vehicles to consumers in the Golden State. The fuel cell for the Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-CELL along with the Citaro FuelCell Hybrid city bus was developed in Vancouver, Canada.
According to Daimler, “Construction of a facility designed for the production of stacks for fuel cell vehicles will begin immediately in a 2000 square meter space in a new Burnaby location. Completion of the production facilities is scheduled for early 2012. Following a graduated test and commissioning phase, small-series production of next-generation fuel cell stacks will commence as of 2013. Apart from delivering a higher output and efficiency, these fuel cell stacks excel with their compact construction. This next generation fuel cell stack will also be suitable for use in sedans such as the
Mercedes-Benz C-Class or E-Class.”
This is yet another piece of evidence that the car manufacturers are plunging ahead with the development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in spite of the apparent lack of government support in building infrastructure to support the vehicles. Los Angeles and several cities in Germany will be the early market testing grounds for consumer acceptance of such vehicles.
As the Mercedes FCV’s seem to be one of the most popular cars for the ride and drives I’ve been to in the Los Angeles area, it’s no wonder the German automaker is betting on early market acceptance of its vehicle on the West Coast.
Thank you for this valuable post. It changed my mind. Thank you for this valuable post. It changed my attitude about fuel cell vehicles.
I wonder if our Nobel Prize winning scientest thinks these Mercedes will run on Isobutanol in our new Isobutanol Economy.OMG!
Best article, lots of intersting things to digest. Very informative about the Mercedes.
I like your sarcasm! This does make me scratch my head in wonder.
On March 7th he blogged about Isobutanol and felt that aggressive research and developement was needed in this area.A fuel like gasoline to be burned in inefficient internal combustion engines.By the time they develope anything useful everyone will be driving fuel cells.He will advocate anything except hydrogen.I really wonder why and he seems to confusing the issue.Why wouldn’t he be aggressively advocating research into finding more ways to manufacture cheap clean hydrogen knowing that it is pretty much a done deal.We don’t need a gasoline substitute!
I have still yet to see a super capacitor car!
Its about time, I’ve been running my vehicles on Hydrogen for years. HHO is the way to go!