Honda and GM's Fuel Cell Partnership Yields Smaller, Cheaper Stack
Honda and General Motors have halved the size and weight of their shared hydrogen fuel cell stack, targeting lower costs and higher durability for future vehicles.
Honda and General Motors have achieved a substantial reduction in the size, weight and cost of their jointly developed hydrogen fuel cell stack, as the two companies continue to progress their partnership in fuel cell technology. According to GM’s executive director of global fuel cell engineering, the latest generation stack now running in laboratory tests is nearly half the size and weight of its predecessor, with costs described as having dropped by orders of magnitude.
The collaboration, announced in 2013, was designed to pool resources and intellectual property in an area where both companies hold extensive patents. Honda and GM rank first and second globally in fuel cell patent holdings. Their joint approach aims to standardise components, allowing both manufacturers to use the same part number for the stack and thus benefit from economies of scale. This is intended to accelerate development while reducing costs, a key barrier to commercial hydrogen vehicle adoption.
Targeting mainstream hydrogen vehicles
While Toyota and Hyundai have already released production hydrogen vehicles, the Mirai and the Tucson Fuel Cell respectively, Honda and GM have taken a more measured approach. Both companies say they want to avoid launching fuel cell vehicles as experimental models, focusing instead on developing systems that are reliable, durable and cost-effective enough for mainstream sale without subsidies.
The latest stack is said to be running in GM’s laboratories, with the companies reporting major improvements in packaging and materials. Weight and size reductions are expected to help with vehicle integration, while lower costs could make hydrogen vehicles more competitive with battery-electric and combustion-powered alternatives.
Technical advances and remaining challenges
Fuel cell vehicles generate electricity by combining hydrogen with oxygen from the air, producing only water vapour as exhaust. One persistent obstacle has been the cost of platinum used in the fuel cell stack, as well as the complexity of sourcing and storing hydrogen. Honda and GM’s work on standardisation and cost reduction addresses the economic side, but infrastructure and fuel sourcing remain hurdles for widespread adoption.
Other manufacturers continue to push hydrogen technology forward. Toyota’s Mirai and Hyundai’s fuel cell SUV are already on sale in select markets, while Daimler has expressed caution about the pace of fuel cell adoption. For more on Hyundai’s hydrogen programme, see Hyundai to Unveil New Hydrogen Fuel Cell SUV in 2017.
Honda and GM have not announced a production date for vehicles using the new stack. Both companies say they are focused on delivering a low-cost, high-performance, durable and safe system that can be deployed at scale. The next steps will depend on how quickly fuel cell technology can be made commercially viable and how infrastructure develops in key markets.
