Fuel-cell Focuses keep running in B. C. Does hydrogen have a future?
Getting government funding for non-profit research is tough even in the best of times. So, with the economy still struggling to recover, this task is an even bigger challenge for Canadian researchers probing the future of hydrogen fuel cell (HFC) vehicles in this country.
Natural Resources Canada (NRC), the National Research Council, B. C. Hydro and B. C. Transit are in the midst of their fifth and final year of testing five fuel cell-powered Ford Focuses in Vancouver and Victoria. These organizations — and Ford — want to know if there may eventually be a place for an HFC vehicle in everyone’s driveway. Before that happens, researchers realize they have to improve the maximum distance range of fuel cell vehicles. The Focuses initially had a meagre range of just 160 kilometres between fill-ups, but that has been greatly improved to 400 km.
Fuelling pressure of the vaporous hydrogen is the key to this improvement, with an increase from 5,000 psi to 10,000 psi at the pump. Some adventurous drivers have thus made road trips to places such as Whistler and Harrison Hot Springs in their fuel cell Focuses.
But the lack of a fuelling infrastructure continues to be a key stumbling block to consumer acceptance of vehicles such as the Focus FCV (Fuel Cell Vehicle) in a chicken-or-egg puzzler facing the auto-makers. There are currently just four hydrogen fuelling pumps in Vancouver and Victoria (one coming in Whistler) and 22 such fuelling stations in California — all part of a burgeoning “hydrogen highway” on the west coast of the continent.
With these unfavourable economies of scale in B. C. — about two cars to each pump –hydrogen is selling for some $6 per kilogram. With more cars on the road, that price is projected to drop to $3 or $4 per kilogram. The Focus FCV will travel about 300 km on four kg of hydrogen fuel. It takes about two minutes to fill the car’s tank, which resides in the rear hatch area of this special Focus and gobbles up most of the storage space back there.
Hydrogen fuel storage is just one of the issues that has been considered and tackled by more contemporary fuel cell vehicles such as the Honda Clarity. It’s all a matter of aligning the three main components — fuel tank, charging battery and fuel cell stack–in a configuration that maximizes interior cabin and storage space.
As such, Honda has located the fuel stack under the front seats in the Clarity and stood the lithium ion storage battery behind the back seats.
The fuel tank is also located aft, but with luggage spaced retained. “It’s a very refined vehicle,” says Shawn Cook, manager of the Vancouver Fuel Cell Vehicle Program.
Ford’s special Focuses have yielded key development data. The five cars trolling the streets and highways of B. C. as daily drivers are among 30 Focus FCVs that have been deployed to test sites around the world. These include Germany, Michigan, Florida and California.
One of the B. C. vehicles has, in fact, the highest kilometre count of all the Focuses, at 85,000. And it has accumulated this in the most demanding geography of any of the test sites, according to the Canadian Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association (CHFCA).
“It’s been a real education,” says the CHFCA’s Ron Harmer, in reference to how battery recharging characteristics have been altered to suit the hilly driving topography of B. C.
Being in Canada has also exposed the Focuses to cold weather conditions, which have traditionally been the bane of hydrogen fuel cell operation. That’s because the fuel cell by-product — water — is apt to freeze in the fuel cell stack, destroying it through expansion. Researchers at the NRC centre in Vancouver have partially tackled the problem by retaining the heat in the stack with a heat retention shield. “The stack is so dense, it retains heat overnight in temperatures down to -10C,” Cook says.
But the hitch regarding below-zero starting has still not been entirely solved, adding fuel to the argument for a continuation of the test program. The $9-million budget for the Vancouver Fuel Cell Vehicle program officially comes to an end on March 31, 2010.
“We hope the program continues, and Ford has expressed an interest in going forward with it,” Cook says. The researchers had expected more problems with the cars — for instance, they anticipated replacing the fuel cell stacks after three years, but there have been no failures so far.
“So, it makes a lot of sense to keep on testing these vehicles to find the problems,” Cook says.
