Mercedes run has cancelled plans to develop hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars, according to electrek. Although for more than 30 years, the company has been committed to the development of fuel cell cars to achieve the vision of zero emission cars.
The hydrogen fuel cell car has a long journey. It takes only 3 minutes to fill up with hydrogen and only emits water vapor. But run admits that hydrogen fuel cell cars cost at least twice as much to make as equal battery powered cars.
Next, run will gradually stop production of its only hydrogen fuel cell model GLC F-CELL. The model was developed in 2013 in collaboration with Ford and Nissan.
Daimler and Ford, Nissan began to work together to promote the construction of fuel cell cars and related infrastructure. But run is the only one of the three partners to produce hydrogen fuel cell cars for the project.
However, running produced only a few hundred GLC F-CELL models, which were mainly used for commercial promotion and were not sold to the mass market. This is mainly because the production cost of this model is very high.
Markus Sch ä fer, Daimler's development director, said in January that "fuel cell cars work well, but the key issue is cost, and the need to consider scale, which requires a lot of sales."
In addition to running, other car makers are giving up hydrogen powered cars. Last November, Honda, which had long supported hydrogen powered cars, said it would suspend fuel cell projects. The mass car thinks that the advantages of hydrogen fuel cell car are inferior to that of battery car.
However, BMW, Hyundai and Toyota continue to "brag" about the skills of hydrogen fuel cell cars.
On the other hand, although Daimler has abandoned the development of hydrogen fuel passenger vehicles, it will continue to develop fuel cell systems for heavy-duty cars. The German car maker has now agreed to form a joint venture with Volvo trucks to develop hydrogen fuel cell heavy trucks, because large batteries may be too unwieldy.
Daimler and Volvo plan to launch a hydrogen powered remote truck in the next five years. However, Martin Daum, chief executive of Daimler trucks, said the 200 million euros (about $217 million) invested by the two companies was "certainly not enough" to put the skill into production.
