Get Ready For Fuel Cells

Automotive Industries,  June, 1999  by Lindsay Brooke

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Suppliers should begin investigating the materials, system and processes needed to build these zero-emission `engines' and their drive systems -- or risk being left behind.

Pistons, rings, con rods and crankshafts. Cylinder blocks, bearings, cams, valve springs, fuel injectors. Timing chains, exhaust systems, even the humble muffler. All are vital components to the internal combustion engine (ICE), the 115-year-old dinosaur that refuses to die because it gets cleaner and more efficient each year. But those components, along with the tools and facilities needed to produce them, are defined for extinction, if the development of a 160-year-old technology -- the fuel cell -- continues at its current pace.

Sure, reports of the ICE's demise have been greatly exaggerated for decades. But more stringent regulations and technological advances are altering the landscape and many automakers are preparing for the change. Ford Chairman William Ford Jr. says his company will move away from the ICE and predicts that, "in our working lifetime we will be a fuel cell driven enterprise."

He may be right For the first time in history, fossil-fueled piston power faces a wall that may be insurmountable -- California's Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate. The 2004 law, which by auto industry calendars takes effect just one product cycle away, has also been adopted by a number of northeastern U.S. states. It calls for 10% of an automaker's vehicles sold in the Golden State to be ZEVs. Even the cleanest ultra-low-emission ICEs can't cut it, and battery-powered EVs are unlikely to be the industry's zero-emissions savior.

That role is increasingly seen as falling to fuel cell-powered vehicles.

A recent study of global powertrain trends by Autofacts Group, a unit of Pricewaterhouse Coopers, projects that automotive fuel cell use "will advance rapidly" beyond 2005. The study predicts fuel cell annual volumes to hit the million-unit level by around 2010 -- roughly three product cycles from today. Its development and sales will be spurred by the U.S. ZEV mandate and various environmental pressures in Europe.

"The major driver of powertrain technology and innovation going forward will continue to be government regulations and legislation," says Autofacts Managing Director Chris Benko. He and other industry analysts predict that political fallout from global climate meetings, such as those held in Buenos Aries and Kyoto, will continue to pressure the world's automakers to reduce exhaust emissions, as it's done in California. And more stringent standards are guaranteed to keep coming.

But the industry is doing a slow turn on emismons issues. What used to be reluctant compliance is becoming a competitive battleground. The speed at which automakers can introduce major technologies, such as affordable fuel cells, to meet the stricter regulations is increasingly viewed by vehicle buyers and shareholders as a strategic market advantage.

Virtually every ms0or automaker has a fuel cell development program underway. DaimlerChrysler (DC) has dedicated a group of 900 people to work on them full-time, and has formed a multi-billion-dollar alliance with Ford and Canadian fuel cell technologist Ballard Power Systems. DC has progressed the farthest. Five years ago its NECAR1 was the size of a moving van, filled with a huge, low-powered fuel cell and storage tanks. The 1999 NECAR4's fuel cell fits under the little A-Class car's sandwich-type floor. It's 800% smaller and produces nearly four times the power.

GM and Toyota recently forged their own fuel cell development axis. BMW is working closely with Delphi and International Fuel Cells, Nissan and Renault have a project ... the list goes on, and includes numerous similar ventures among drive systems and power control specialists.

A fleet of up to 50 fuel cell-powered test cars and buses will reach California roads between 2000 and 2003, part of an effort by the DC-Ford-Ballard alliance. It's supported by Shell, ARCO and Texaco, which are beginning to evaluate hydrogen fuel supply.

Despite the many advances, however, NECAR4 and its counterparts are still roughly 10 times too costly and 30% overweight to be viable in today's market. Numerous issues, from cold starting to leak detection, still hamper hydrogen as an automotive fuel.

Durability cycles of critical items such as the proton-exchange membrane, are still unclear.

"Fuel cells are not fail-safe," notes Chris Borroni-Bird, DaimlerChrysler's senior manager of technology strategy planning. "The membrane cannot have any holes in it, so manufacturing quality control must be very stringent." Even the catalytic coatings on the bipolar plates cannot be porous. "It's a challenge when you're talking about a flow field with grooves in it," he adds. (see sidebar.)

High noble metals content in the catalysts will keep stack costs high. Experts say a midsize car will require l0 grams of platinum for its fuel cell.

Overall, the learning curve is steep. That's why industry leaders, including GM Vice Chairman Harry Pearce and DC's engineering technologies chief Bernard Robertson, are telling suppliers: "We need your help."