California dreamin': 50,000 fuel cell vehicles by 2015

Arnold Schwarzenegger won't be back. The actor best known for playing the cyborg hero/anti-hero of the Terminator film franchise left the office of governor of California in January and is reportedly considering future film roles.

But it's his environmental record that should be remembered as his greatest achievement, says Mercedes-Benz Australia/Pacific spokesman, David McCarthy.

McCarthy, Senior Manager Corporate Communications for the prestige importer, was full of praise for the Austrian bodybuilder-turned-actor-turned-politician, who was elected as a Republican to the governorship of the US state -- and then promptly shifted to the left, where the environment was concerned.

Speaking with the Carsales Network on the occasion of a media drive program for the B-Class F-Cell in Melbourne, McCarthy explained that Schwarzenegger has left California with an on-going commitment to establishing hydrogen fuel replenishing stations around the state.

"The result [of Schwarzenegger's focus on environmental issues] is there's going to be dozens of stations," said McCarthy. That's a good thing too, because the man from Benz reckons that by 2015 there'll be as many as 50,000 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles running around California.

There are already various experimental and semi-experimental cars being trialled in the US, with Benz also announcing that the B-Class F-Cell will be available to the general public as a practical daily driver from next year, priced at US $849 a month over a three-year lease.

Toyota has also thrown its hat into the ring, telling the Carsales Network two years ago that it would have a commercially available fuel cell vehicle by 2015. Honda's FCX Clarity is already in the hands of 'Fred Nerk' for the process of 'beta testing', and the American manufacturers won't be shut out of their own market either. The emerging automotive technology seems set to find new users at a pace faster than petrol-engined vehicles did in the early years of the 20th Century.

With the number of hydrogen stations that California will see established between now and 2015 (and beyond), the issue of refueling fuel-cell vehicles in the US state ceases to pose a problem.

"Inconvenience becomes zero," as McCarthy put it quite simply.

Now compare the Californian situation with Australia.

"We need people to talk about the infrastructure issue," McCarthy explained. "The production of hydrogen is possible, small scale. [But] it needs to be ramped up -- big scale."

For the purpose of keeping the B-Class F-Cell on the road in Australia, Benz has drawn upon the services of Linde-BOC to follow the cars around with a semi-trailer of hydrogen, in long, red tanks.

BOC has five hydrogen-producing plants around Australia, supplying hydrogen for the food industry and, amusingly, the oil industry. McCarthy would like to see hydrogen production in this country supported by renewable energy ideally, but at least the logistics of storing and transporting the gas doesn't seem quite as challenging as had been suggested in the past.

It was McCarthy's view that any company aiming to set up as a retail franchise could begin by offering LPG and CNG, with one hydrogen bowser on the forecourt. As more hydrogen cars become available, the retail outlets could expand the number of hydrogen pumps to handle the added demand.

And hydrogen cars will certainly come here some day. The B-Class F-Cell (pictured) has already motored down the east coast of Australia as part of Benz's F-Cell World Drive. In a peak-hour excursion around the Benz HQ's hinterland in Mulgrave, the fuel cell vehicle was quiet and easily capable of keeping up or even overtaking Melbourne traffic. That it did so with less compressor whine than the Honda FCX Clarity was further proof that the technology is improving all the time. The B-Class F-Cell won't sprout up in Benz dealerships here any time soon -- due to the lack of local hydrogen fuelling infrastructure -- but the car could make it to Australia if the infrastructure challenges can be overcome.

Benz is in the process of merging fuel cell drivetrain systems into its volume-selling car production. As with Toyota's philosophy, the Benz fuel cell drive systems will be scalable. Ordering a fuel cell version of the C-Class from the dealer will involve no more head-scratching than choosing a C 63 over a C 250. And the B-Class F-Cell is built on a platform already engineered for right-hand drive.

"There's no technical reason that car can't be built in right-hand drive, right now," said McCarthy.

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