Bob Barnard Track Engineering

I had an interesting afternoon yesterday visiting one of the world's best kept secrets,"The Mercedes F_Cell Round the World Drive" on its Phoenix stop over. If an old friend had not been part of the team I would not know it was going on, as I am sure most of you aren't. Regular readers will know that I have long championed hydrogen as the real alternative fuel of the future, it has just taken some time to get it going. Mercedes are driving four fuel cell cars around the world with selected journalists at the wheel, to prove the technology has arrived to a point that it is safe and reliable, much as manufacturers did with the Le Mans 24 hours 90 years ago.

I could not believe the lack of media coverage, the only place to see this is on Mercedes web site,

http://www.emercedesbenz.com/autos/mercedes-benz/b-class/mercedes-benz-f-cell-world-drive-kicks-off-its-north-american-tour/

Mercedes have arranged their own refueling through Linde as they need to refuel midday, the cars having a normal gasoline engine range, and there is not going to be hydrogen in the middle of the US at the moment. There is refueling in Phoenix though and California has twenty hydrogen stations already.



The beauty of hydrogen is it really is zero emissions, the tail pipe releases water vapor, so when the generation of hydrogen is by way of renewable sources, like Iceland with geothermal energy, then it is the perfect closed cycle. And no batteries to go and find lithium for and to dispose of afterwards.



So Lord Peter Drayson, when are you going to get real and race a hydrogen powered car?