Recently at an event in Germany, officials from
The GLC F-Cell propulsion system is all electric, but doesn’t derive its electrons entirely from the grid. The electric motor at the rear axle gets current from a combination of a 9-kilowatt-hour lithium ion battery and a hydrogen fuel cell. This certainly isn’t the first vehicle we’ve seen with this sort of architecture but it may well be the first to get to production. The most recent example appeared in November 2014 in the form of the
The A7’s battery had an 8.8-kWh capacity and two motors, one at each axle but in principle the concept was the same. However, Audi also wasn’t the first. To the best of my knowledge, Ford actually deserves credit or at least they are the first that I’m aware of. Back in January 2007, on the same day that
The polished aluminum-bodied Airstream was at least on paper powered by a plug-in hybrid fuel cell powertrain dubbed HySeries Drive. Like most concept vehicles including the Volt that was across the floor in Cobo Hall, the actual hardware in the vehicle bore no resemblance to the specs on the press release. However, very much unlike the Chevrolet concept with its golf-cart motor, Ford actually had running prototypes with HySeries drive.
In the fall of 2006 while the design teams at GM and Ford were putting the finishing touches on the Volt and Airstream, the fuel cell engineering team rolled out an Edge crossover with a lithium ion battery of roughly 10-kWh for a 20 to 25 mile driving range and a fuel cell. This was an actual fully functional prototype with the fuel cell system and drive motor packaged in the engine compartment and the battery under the floor.
Coincidently, when GM officials provided a background briefing on the Volt a few weeks before the show, they provided a number of renderings of alternative powertrain configurations including all-battery and fuel cell hybrid with 20 miles of battery range. While mockups were shown at later auto shows, none of this type were ever built.
2007 Chevrolet Volt Concept Chassis - E-Flex System fuel Cell Propulsion System Variant. (image... [+]
Two weeks after showing the Airstream in Detroit, Ford unveiled the HySeries drive Edge at the Washington D.C. auto show. A couple of weeks after that, Ford invited me to its fuel cell lab in Dearborn to actually drive that Edge.
You might wondering at this point what does any of this have to do with
When I arrived at the lab I was met by fuel cell engineering manager Mujeeb Ijaz. Mujeeb gave me a tour of the lab and gave me the technical run-down on the Edge as well as a fuel-cell powered Explorer the team had been testing before we went for a drive around Dearborn in the Edge. You can read all about that in this February 2007 article I wrote on AutoblogGreen. At the time Ijaz explained that Ford had plans to build a fleet of the HySeries Edges to be used in a field test program similar to what GM was about to launch with its Project Driveway program. Sadly, as Ford’s financial situation deteriorated in 2007 and into 2008, the whole HySeries program was just one of many that was shelved.
Mujeeb Ijaz went on to become chief technology officer at battery maker A123 Systems where he stayed for several years until early 2015. At that point he moved to California to work with a one-time personal computer startup that was now in the phone business and trying to figure out what to do next. In February 2015, rumors erupted about the top-secret Project Titan at Apple. Titan was apparently hiring like mad from the automotive and battery industry and much of the world became convinced that an Apple car was imminent.
In typical fashion, Ijaz has maintained radio silence since adopting an apple.com email address but the presumption is that if Apple builds a car (and that is still a huge IF!) it will almost certainly be electric and designed to take on Tesla. When news of Project Titan emerged it was largely fueled by a lawsuit by A123 against Apple accusing the latter of poaching a large number of critical employees including Ijaz.
With the news last week from Mercedes-Benz about the GLC F-Cell I began to wonder about a connection to the HySeries drive Edge. At the time the Edge was developed, Ford and Daimler were both using fuel cells from Ballard Power Systems. By late 2007 with the auto industry already seeming to be in trouble and many R&D projects being shelved, Ballard decided to get out of the automotive fuel cell business and focus on stationary power and buses. They sold the automotive division to Daimler and Ford who continue to collaborate on fuel cell stack technology to this day. This course made me wonder if there was any connection between the Edge and GLC.
According to Ford spokesman Paul Seredynski, while the stack technology collaboration is ongoing, there is no direct connection or technology sharing from the Edge program that went into the GLC. The GLC may have drawn inspiration from Ford’s work nearly a decade ago, but that’s as far as it goes. As for Ford, Seredynski says, “we continue to evaluate fuel cells as part of our Power of Choice portfolio but we don’t have any near term production plans.”
With the leader of the HySeries drive effort firmly ensconced in the vicinity of Cupertino, California, what might Apple do? Frankly it’s anyone’s guess. It would be foolish to rule out a fuel cell PHEV Apple car out of hand. Going that route would give Apple a clear differentiator against Tesla. If Apple gets into the car business, it is most likely to do so through a mobility on-demand service such where customers pay a subscription for access to vehicles. In this model, if the vehicles are autonomous, only a handful of hydrogen stations would be needed in a city to service a fleet and they could quickly back into service rather than waiting hours to charge up.
As I said at the top, the connections between these dots are tenuous at best. But just imagine the possibilities.
The author is a senior analyst on the Transportation Efficiencies team at Navigant Research
