What is it?
Mercedes has been experimenting with fuel cell vehicles for more than 15 years, but according to research and car development boss Dr Thomas Weber, the company has now reached the point of being able to build hydrogen fuel cell cars to regular production standards. And that includes the car we're sampling here, one of 200 B-Classes that's about to go on extended trial in Europe and the USA.
Curiously, Mercedes considers this car to be at least as much an electric vehicle as it does a hydrogen fuel cell car, because it's propelled by a 136bhp electric motor, and because its functionality compares very favourably with pure battery-powered electric vehicles. It has a range of around 250 miles rather than the 80-100 typically offered by electric cars, and it needs just three minutes to be refuelled rather than the often-impractical five-to-eight hour recharge needed by a battery-powered car. And both produce zero emissions, a fuel cell car's exhaust putting out nothing more malodorous than pure water vapour.
So what's the drawback? There had to be one of course, and it's the near total lack of fuel stations capable of replenishing the tanks of a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. That has always been the case of course, but there are moves afoot, detailed shortly, to begin solving this problem.
As to the B-Class itself, this F-CELL version looks remarkably similar to the conventional car bar some stickers. That's in large part down the B-Class's sandwich floor construction, which enables the carbonfibre hydrogen tanks, the fuel cell stack and assorted electrical control units to be housed under the floor. So there's no loss of passenger or luggage space, and the electric motor is mounted up front, where an internal combustion engine would usually sit. Climb inside and the dashboard is virtually unchanged bar some instrumentation changes, while the transmission is as for an automatic because there's only one gear. All of which promises an easy driving experience.
