Fuel cell powertrains challenges

Within the production, the production steps, the process and the tooling need to be developed and sized for the expected volume. Especially the transformation from a small manufacturing process to high volume production is challenging the OEMs. Several studies showed the fundamental possibility to achieve competitive cost of fuel cell powertrain [6, 24]. 

Beside the customer requirements and the fulfilment of legislative rules and regulations, the car makers need to face important economic challenges in order to successfully introduce fuel cell vehicles into the market. A business case of such a vehicle or powertrain needs to be safeguarded within a given period of time. For fuel cell technology OEMs already invested significant amounts of money, in the order of several billions of euros. 

If the investment costs are relevant to ensure the successes of the fuel cell technology the vehicle and powertrain material cost will be determinant. This is the most challenging task for the coming years bring the new powertrain at competitive cost. It is not to underestimate the role of the supplier base, which needs to keep pace with all standards of the automotive world in a highly innovative field. 

The freeze start-up is for fuel cell technologies a challenge, that is comparable with the complex task for conventional powertrains to minimize nitrogen dioxide. In the fuel cell stack, respectively in the cathode, pure water is produced, which naturally... 

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