Carmakers are recently starting to invest heavily on fuel cells with several of them already launching models.
Suzuki and Intelligent Energy have teamed up to create SMILE FC System Corp that will develop air-cooled fuel cell systems.
According from the announcement, their joint venture also consists of a non-exclusive license agreement that will give Suzuki the access to IE’s fuel cell technology to be employed on their vehicles. On the other hand, IE stands to benefit from the production expertise of Suzuki and the Japanese supply chain.
It’s indeed a huge step towards the commercialization of auto fuel-cell systems. In fact, IE’s air-cooled fuel cell system is in the Burgman scooter that became the world’s first such vehicle to get the European Union’s WVTA (Whole Vehicle Type Approval) in 2011.
Strong interest in fuel cell cars from the industrial sector and government departments in Korea, China and Japan have seen a promising growth.
For instance, General Motors has already allotted USD 2 billion in R&D and is slated to introduce fuel cell cars in Europe and America on 2016.
According to a prominent oil firm, fuel cell vehicles can possibly make up 40% of the global auto market by 2051. Automakers on their part, are saying that vehicles that run on natural gas might end up as only 5% of the total global number by 2040.
The British government has already introduced a new system supported by the automobile industry that will increase the progress of fuel car development.
Daimler, Toyota, Hyundai and General Motors all support the UK H2 Mobility in coming up with a plan to make fuel cell cars commercially available on 2015.
Other supporters are Nissan, Tata, ITM Power, BOC, Air Products, Air Liquide, Scottish and Southern Energy.
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are gradually being known as one of the effective alternatives as the world moves to a reduction of carbon emissions in the future. They are very efficient as they can be fueled in a few minutes and does not have any tail-pipe emission but can still travel an equal range to that of the usual combustion engine.
The involved government departments and firms are set to confer in several months to plan the development of hydrogen fuel cell automobiles before the year ends.
According to a report, fuel-cell prices on a variety of applications can be expected to fall in the future, removing a crucial barring factor for the world to adopt it.
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