Dawn of The Fuel Cell Vehicle

Despite quips that fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) are on the horizon and always will be on the horizon, they are coming. In fact they are here, or at least one of them is, with two more being promised for 2015 and three expected in 2017.

Fuel cell vehicles are electric cars or trucks, but don’t use a traditional grid-rechargeable battery pack. Instead, a fuel cell for vehicle application takes hydrogen and combines it with oxygen from the air, and through an electrochemical process, generates electricity. When many fuel cells are combined together in a fuel cell stack, there is enough electricity generated for an electric motor to power the wheels. The only by-product is water vapor.

FCV Focus is California

California is the hot spot for FCVs for a reason, strong pressures from California’s Air Resources Board. The state has mandated that large automakers sell a percentage of zero emission vehicles(ZEVs), either battery electric cars or fuel-cell electric vehicles, in order to sell traditional cars in the state.

The sales of ZEVs are tracked by the state as credits and automakers can buy, sell, and trade those credits with other automakers. In return, car companies can offer their full vehicle lines, including those with very low fuel-economy ratings such as pickups, without being hit with state fines.

Using a carrot-and-stick incentive approach, the state awards nine ZEV credits for fuel cell vehicles, with a lesser credit amount given to battery-electric vehicles and plug-in gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles based on the amount of electric power provided.

Car companies are beginning to nibble on the carrot, and here’s the list of fuel cell vehicles that are here now and are coming through 2017.