As Mercedes-Benz's Dr. Christian Mohrdieck, responsible for fuel-cell development, says of the new B-Class F-Cell, "The most spectacular thing about it is how unspectacular it is."
What he means is that the new fuel-cell-powered electric vehicle is so simple to use and so much like the cars we are accustomed to that one soon stops thinking about the flow of hydrogen and oxygen, the proton-exchange process and all of the sci-fi stuff going on in the compartment below the rear-floor section. For the 200 folks who lease one of these pilot-program cars in California and Europe, the most challenging aspect will be finding hydrogen fueling stations.
You just get in and drive. Actually, you have to insert the familiar Mercedes key plug into a slot first and turn it to power up the system. All the gauges light up, but there are no accompanying noises, and we found it sometimes not quite ready to go when we slid the selector into drive. It then sends a message asking you to put it back into Park.
It's curious that this highly developed alternative to the internal combustion vehicle retains ignition-key functions where many conventional cars have gone keyless, but it tells you the pains Mercedes engineers have taken to make their F-Cell car feel normal.
What he means is that the new fuel-cell-powered electric vehicle is so simple to use and so much like the cars we are accustomed to that one soon stops thinking about the flow of hydrogen and oxygen, the proton-exchange process and all of the sci-fi stuff going on in the compartment below the rear-floor section. For the 200 folks who lease one of these pilot-program cars in California and Europe, the most challenging aspect will be finding hydrogen fueling stations.
You just get in and drive. Actually, you have to insert the familiar Mercedes key plug into a slot first and turn it to power up the system. All the gauges light up, but there are no accompanying noises, and we found it sometimes not quite ready to go when we slid the selector into drive. It then sends a message asking you to put it back into Park.
It's curious that this highly developed alternative to the internal combustion vehicle retains ignition-key functions where many conventional cars have gone keyless, but it tells you the pains Mercedes engineers have taken to make their F-Cell car feel normal.
The Specs
The F-Cell is powered by a 100-kilowatt (136-hp) electric motor that produces about 214 lb-ft of torque pretty much all the time. This latest fuel cell is 40 percent smaller than the version in Mercedes-Benz's previous testbed, the A-Class F-Cell, yet it produces 30 percent more power while consuming 30 percent less fuel.
Electrical energy is stored in a liquid-cooled array of lithium-ion batteries with a storage capacity exceeding 1.4 kilowatt-hours, while the hydrogen fuel itself is housed in three tanks in the compartment beneath the passenger cell. Each tank holds about 8 pounds of compressed hydrogen. The fuel cell itself, the batteries and the electric propulsion system are also housed in the under-floor compartment.
This so-called sandwich system provides a buffer for noise and does not compromise passenger or luggage space above the floor. There is nothing in the passenger compartment that hints at the unusual technology other than the instrumentation, which features a power gauge in the driver's panel and a schematic display—along the same lines as you'd see in a typical hybrid—in the console that provides a commentary of where the power is coming from and where it's going, depending on conditions. That screen is more likely to be tuned to the navigation system, however, as it's part of the usual Mercedes COMAND system.
The F-Cell is a front-wheel-drive vehicle with electric power-steering assist and an electric air-conditioning compressor. As you'd expect on a vehicle of this kind, the windows and exterior mirrors are also power-adjustable. There's no overt hint of a bare-bones economy model about the car, which will help any technology-averse drivers adjust quickly.
Like the hybrid vehicles many of us are accustomed to, the F-Cell uses regenerative braking to help the battery pack stay fully charged. But since the batteries in a fuel-cell car are as much buffers (or capacitors) as they are energy sources, there are times when the fuel cell has enough juice to keep them fully charged, and you notice much-reduced regenerative braking when you lift off the pedal.
All of this technology may have shrunk and increased in efficiency, but it's still pretty heavy, and the F-Cell ends up weighing a smidge short of 2 tons, at 3990 pounds. Still, the F-Cell will seat five and carry a fair amount of luggage. The second-row seatbacks fold forward, increasing cargo volume from 19 to 54 cubic feet.
For its weight, the F-Cell doesn't perform too badly, either, capable of reaching 60 mph from rest in 11.4 seconds and achieving 106 mph.
The Drive
Driving the F-Cell is a simple matter of unlocking the car via the keyfob switch, climbing in easily—thanks to the tallish crossover format—and switching on. The fuel cell takes very little time to come onstream, and it'll start and run at temperatures as low as minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit. There are none of the whirring, hissing and gurgling noises we recall from early experimental F-C vehicles, and the car barely hums as it comes to life. And that may have been the ventilation system.
A conventional console selector glides through the usual Mercedes maze to the drive position and the F-Cell is ready to go. You step on the gas (hydrogen is a gas, right?), and it moves quietly but decisively down the road. Acceleration seems entirely adequate, and response to the pedal is proportional and immediate.
Having all of the electric machine's torque on tap all of the time is not a bad thing, and you never have to wait for a downshift. The F-Cell is geared to just one range forward but obviously has a reverse gear too. Part of the drive route was on California's toll road 73, where the F-Cell was content to cruise at 75 to 85 mph with no sign of distress.
In fact, if you stood on it, the car would begin picking up reasonably quickly. Its top speed of 106 mph will likely not arrive terribly soon, but the car is definitely not hamstrung among the big BMWs, Benzes and Lexuses of Orange County. The ride and noise characteristics are very civilized, and the handling feels light and responsive despite the rather magnetic feel of the electric-assist steering.
Part of that balanced ride is due to the weight being held very low in the vehicle. It was only when encountering pronounced heaves in the road that the car would betray its considerable mass, the rear end rebounding in a way that seesawed the car in a noticeable fashion. On all other surfaces, the F-Cell was well-behaved.
Mercedes engineers did a good job on stifling road and wind noise, presumably because the muted operation of the fuel cell and electric drivetrain left all the other sounds clear headway. So the F-Cell is quiet and refined, and its passage from one place to another is unremarkable in every way other than the fact that it is producing only water as a byproduct of its progress.
This in itself is amazing. If one's concern in an era of uncertainty about the use of fossil fuel is the likelihood of continued personal mobility, the F-Cell allows us a sigh of relief. Even if the romance of V12 exhaust symphonies and the excitement of 4-second sprints to 60 mph all disappears at some point, we'll still be able to roll down to the beach with the stereo pumping.
Of course, we don't yet know the real cost of large-scale fuel-cell implementation. Right now, Mercedes is leasing these cars to selected end-users for about $849 a month for up to 36 months. And, at the moment, there are only five hydrogen refueling stations in Los Angeles.
We visited one in Irvine to observe the refueling process. While the nozzle system itself is easy to use, needing only to be thrust into the inlet-valve head to click into place, the station itself was malfunctioning and could not muster enough pressure (over 10,000 psi) to refill the cars. Lucky the range of the F-Cell is good (around 200 miles) and we could continue on to downtown L.A.
We're told the refilling process requires less than 3 minutes and that various programs are afoot to expand the number of stations quickly. Four more will come onstream by the end of 2010.
The Bottom Line
Regulations from the EU, the EPA and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) are calling for dramatic reductions in carbon emissions in the very near future. To meet the 2040 projections, most vehicles on the road will need to be zero-emission vehicles at that time. Whether or not that comes to pass will depend on a number of factors, but companies like Mercedes-Benz are already planning for a post-internal-combustion future. In fact, Mercedes says it'll offer a fuel-cell vehicle for sale by 2015.
That eventuality may sound dire to hard-core hot rodders, but if it means having to drive around in something like the Mercedes-Benz F-Cell, we can certainly live with it.
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