Ford Reports Its Fleet of Fuel Cell Test Vehicles Has Exceeded Expectations
Ford Motor Co. announced today that its 30 fuel-cell test vehicles have exceeded the expectations of the company's hydrogen research engineers by accumulating more than 865,000 real world miles without significant maintenance issues since the fleet's launch three years ago.
Encouraged by the program's success, Ford said it recently reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy to extend its three-year-old hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle program for up to 24 months, until the next-generation system is ready for deployment in the 2010 timeframe.
Ford was one of the first automakers to launch a fleet of hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicles in 2005, after unveiling a prototype in late 2003. Its Focus Fuel Cell fleet partners include government agencies across the U.S. and in Canada, Germany and Iceland, where cold climate testing is expected to result in significant performance improvements on the next generation.
Additional Ford hydrogen projects have included a fleet of 20 hydrogen internal combustion engine buses, the Fusion Hydrogen 999 that set a land speed record in 2007, a Fuel Cell Explorer and a Plug-in Hybrid Edge that uses a fuel cell-powered HySeries Drive.
A hydrogen fuel cell vehicle produces electricity through an electro-chemical process in the fuel cell stack. Its only tailpipe emissions are drops of water. Fuel cell vehicles hold the promise of decreasing the amount of carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming by replacing vehicles that run on fossil fuels.
According to Ford's global fuel cell team, the first-generation fuel-cell vehicles worked much better than originally expected with virtually no degradation in performance. In light of that success, the Department of Energy, which shares the test program's operating cost with Ford, agreed to extend the program.
Scott Doggett, Contributor
- Posted by
- Scott Doggett August 19, 2008, 3:47 PM
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- Emissions, Ford, Fuel Cell, Fuel Economy, Fuels & Technologies, Hydrogen
It's kind of neat to see a 3-5 year fleet test. Got a link to a summary of the results of the test?
Beats the heck out of handing out cars to celebrities just to get noticed.