Who thought that fuel cell vehicles had lost out to electric cars in the green car race? Mercedes-Benz appears to have put fuel cell cars back on the radar once more.
The German carmaker has presented the F125 research vehicle, a fuel cell plug-in hybrid that has a range of more than 621miles and anticipates more than two generations of vehicles to 2025 and beyond.
Mercedes’ aim with the F125 is to demonstrate emission-free individual mobility in the luxury segment and the fuel cell car works with concepts and technologies that are proven but are not yet readily available. Among its innovations are: a further development of the fuel cell drive system in tandem with plug-in technology; a new hydrogen storage technology; and lithium-sulphur batteries which Mercedes is looking at in parallel with a further development of its current lithium-ion battery and research into lithium-air technology.
The fuel cell system will be centrally located with electric motors installed near the wheels in the front and rear axles. It relies on a further development of the Mercedes-Benz fuel cell stack demonstrated in the B-Class F-CELL earlier this year. It can accelerate from 0-62mph in 4.9seconds with a top speed of 137mph while fuel consumption is the equivalent of 87mpg.
As for the hydrogen storage system, it allows the hydrogen tank to be fully integrated into the bodyshell structure for the first time and is based on Metal Organic Frameworks that are porous solid bodies that consist of numerous, identical basic components that can be put together on a modular basis.
Finally, the lithium-sulphur battery has a storage capacity of 10kWh and is installed behind the rear seats. It has a total operating range of 1,000km including up to 50km on battery electric power alone.
