Technology Maturity of Fuel Cell System installed in Mercedes B-Class during the World Drive

Fuel cell technology is gaining more public, political and industrial awareness after the success of the Mercedes-Benz World Drive. The B-Class F-Cell is equipped with the Nucellsys fuel cell system and accomplished more than 30,000 km in real world condition over 4 Continents without failures. Operating temperature from -15°C up to 35°C, altitude of more than 2000m, desert heavy rain, highway and heavy traffic jam were challenging the fuel cell system. The technology maturity has been publically demonstrated and important customer and real use information’s has been collected which will further improve the next generation system. This paper gives an up-date of the fuel cell system technology maturity and the outlook of next generation challenges.