Around the world in 125 days – fuel cell out to prove a point

Around the world in 125 days – fuel cell out to prove a point

Three Mercedes-Benz B-Class fuel cell vehicles have begun an epic 125-day circumnavigation of the world. The cars will travel 30,000 km across four continents and through 14 countries and will finish their world tour back in Stuttgart, where they started.

The F-CELL World Drive, as it’s called, is aimed at confirming the technical maturity of fuel cell technology, as well as its suitability for everyday use as a safe and reliable means of transport over long distances and in the widest variety of road and weather conditions.

Around the world in 125 days – fuel cell out to prove a point

The tour will initially head south via Paris, Barcelona and Madrid into Lisbon, continuing the journey by plane to the US east coast. From Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the route heads across North America along the Gulf of Mexico towards Los Angeles before heading up to vancouver, Canada, a distance of 7,500 km.

Next is a 5,000 km trip across Australia, beginning from Sydney towards Perth, with stopovers in Melbourne and Adelaide. The last transfer between continents takes the cars into Shanghai, and from Beijing, the cars will cover more than 10,000 km towards Moscow, before heading into Northern Europe. The cars will travel via Finland to Stockholm, then Oslo in Norway before making the journey back, via Denmark, to Germany, arriving in Stuttgart at the beginning of June.

Around the world in 125 days – fuel cell out to prove a point

The circumnavigation drive will also draw attention to a significant challenge, which is with the infrastructure needed for the provision of hydrogen. Mercedes says that this type of electric mobility can only be implemented on a comprehensive scale when it is backed by a network of hydrogen filling stations designed to meet demand. As such, the company is looking at motivating the advancement of filling station networks through joint development.

Now, getting more people and countries in on the act would naturally bring the cost of fuel cell technology and vehicles down, fitting in with the prediction reported earlier. Of course, based on the route taken by the world drive, you can see which countries are integral to those plans in the immediate term, and which are not.

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Anthony Lim

Anthony Lim believes that nothing is better than a good smoke and a car with character, with good handling aspects being top of the prize heap. Having spent more than a decade and a half with an English tabloid daily never being able to grasp the meaning of brevity or being succinct, he wags his tail furiously at the idea of waffling - in greater detail - about cars and all their intrinsic peculiarities here.

 

Comments

  • stevo on Jan 31, 2011 at 12:25 pm

    good luck Mercedes..
    hope our Malaysian government will give more support to future green engine..

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  • 4agze on Jan 31, 2011 at 12:57 pm

    i’ve seen and sit in one of these during my business trip to frankfurt…oh my you can’t even heard or realized the engine was on…and the only thing came out of the exhaust is drops of clear water!

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  • drMpower on Jan 31, 2011 at 12:58 pm

    when u look at the map shown above
    the so called ‘around the world in 125 days’
    involved two modes of travelling
    one is by land of which they drive
    the other is through the sea
    of which i dont think the B class can float on the water
    so presumably the cars were carried in floating transportation
    called boat or ferry or whatever

    so roughly we can see the land
    travelled by the B class in an EPIC journey
    on the map
    surely u gonna agree this fuel cells indeed the thing u would be considering if u wanna do a ferdinand magellan next time u are bored and at the same time filthy rich
    aye?
    think about it again

    u see the amount of land they car drive on
    and compare it to the amount of sea distance they covered
    while being ferried around

    from my specific calculation
    aided by professors in scientific mapping building planning and stiggy neural face positioning field
    i can make it that the EPIC journey only covered 1/3 of real driving
    while the other 2/3 is done with the cars were docked in a ferry
    of which definitely they were … NOT MOVING
    surely thats no problem problem is it
    of course they charged it again and running again
    nevermind

    but the way this promotional stunt tell
    is kinda misleading
    people would be assuming it did go round the world
    by 100% driving or mostly by driving
    u know
    like trans-world rally thing somesort
    stopping in egypt take pictures with noobies on the street burning things
    then goa, took snaps with malaria
    then russia
    mongolia, etc etc

    unless they dont want it to stall at hebron
    for the baby stiggy to trash it while it only 30 days old

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  • fuel cell phone on Jan 31, 2011 at 1:59 pm

    perhaps they should drive down south through panama until reach rio de janeiro, then by ferry to cape town, then up north to portugal through morocco

    from shanghai they drive down south again until singapore, then ferrying to port hedland before circling down australia through perth

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  • If everybody is using fuel cell cars in the near future , will the road be too wet ? Since it produces pure water only …

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    • fuel cell phone on Jan 31, 2011 at 9:04 pm

      hehe, perhaps all the cars will be equipped with waste water recirculation system, add on simple filtration, tadaaa… your on-the-road-self-made RO water

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  • bobdbilder on Feb 02, 2011 at 2:14 am

    Its a case of trying desperately to hold onto Internal Combustion Engines against the tide of electric vehicles. There is increased awareness what EVs can bring. Not just to the environment but also to industries. Auto makers will fly this banner as it would save their companies against the tide of EVs and their (eventual) loss of market share. In years to come, it would be a good study in MBA classes on Strategic Marketing.

    Governments will decide either to make hydrogen generators where pump stations are, or ditch them altogether for quick charging stations. Its a no-brainer when you think about costs. They will try as much as they can, make people worry about EVs. But they cannot hide away from the fact that EVs will eventually beat them.

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