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Hydrogen PEM fuel cells offer a viable way of providing the electrical energy to power a vehicle. With rapid refueling and acceptable range on a tank of fuel, they provide a complementary technology to battery-powered EVs that will ultimately offer a route to decarbonising transport. However, the demands on an automotive fuel cell stack provide a challenging environment for key components within the membrane electrode assembly (MEA). Frequent start-up shut-down events and freeze starts can create conditions that cause corrosion within the fuel cell. The risk of fuel starvation to individual cells within a large stack of several hundred cells is also a potential cause of corrosion which will inevitably lead to degradation and reduced stack lifetime. While there are system-level mitigation strategies that can be employed in terms of design, controls and interventions, the most efficient solution is to improve the intrinsic stability of the key cell components themselves.

This paper describes the application of a systematic methodology to the exploratory investigation of fuel economy for a heavy-duty route vehicle with a hybrid powertrain. The analytical study considered parallel hydraulic hybrid, parallel electric and series electric hybrid architectures in addition to the baseline conventional powertrain. The real world driving mission for the target vehicle, a domestic refuse collection truck, was clarified by making vehicle measurements. System simulation was then used as a key tool to support the fuel economy predictions and trade studies.