Shotgun approach to alternative fuel systems

The fuel cell vehicle might as well be a prop from a science fiction movie.

Its complex components are not durable or cheap, so popular wisdom has it that fuel cells will be a long time coming to market, if ever.

The general public's ambivalence or apathy to the fuel cell contrasts drastically with the way the public is beginning to embrace hybrid-drive technology.

A local survey by Roy Morgan Research polled 30,000 respondents to find that there is an eight per cent growth trend in the consideration of hybrid-drive vehicles as 'the next car'.

The growing interest in hybrids is also driven -- or fuelled -- by environmental concerns like global warming as much as fuel prices.

More than half the new car buyers who took part in the survey would seriously consider a hybrid-drive vehicle as a replacement for their current car, within four years.

The results of the survey dovetail with a recent report from Toyota that hybrid production had increased at an amazing rate since production of the first Prius commenced (more here).

At the present, only Honda, Lexus and Toyota market hybrid-drive vehicles in Australia, although there is a much greater choice of hybrid vehicles in foreign markets (more here).

However, and in spite of their own work on hybrid-drive vehicles (more here), none of that has deterred Mercedes-Benz from developing an A-Class with a fuel cell system and delivering it to power utilities in Iceland for their assessment.

Why Iceland? The country's high proportion of geo-thermal and hydro-electric power is a cheap means of producing abundant hydrogen that a fuel cell requires to create electricity necessary to run the car's drive motor.

One of the major issues facing manufacturers building either hydrogen-fuelled internal combustion cars or hydrogen-burning fuel cell cars is that hydrogen is difficult and costly to extract and hard to keep stored.

Iceland is rich in naturally occurring power sources, so the fuel cell car becomes a viable opportunity -- in Iceland at least.

The A-Class delivered to the two utilities, Landsvirkjun and Reykjavik Energy, will undergo 'beta' testing for a year to evaluate its efficacy in the role.

A second A-Class 'F-Cell' will be delivered to Iceland early next year.

"We are convinced that fuel cell driven vehicles are the concept of the future" said Gudmundur Thoroddsson, CEO of Reykjavik Energy. Mr Thoroddsson's company is planning to convert half the company fleet to alternative fuel sources over a five-year timeframe.

Prof. Dr. Herbert Kohler of DaimlerChrysler said "The use of our fuel-cell-powered A-Class in Iceland is an excellent example of sustainable mobility, because the hydrogen is produced locally with geothermal energy or hydropower. This means that totally environment-friendly motoring is already a reality in Iceland."

Now, about the rest of the world...

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