Daimler, Ford and Nissan Motor have signed a “unique” three-way agreement to jointly develop a common fuel cell system “to speed up availability of zero-emission technology and significantly reduce investment costs”, the automakers announced on Monday.
They said the collaboration was expected to lead to the launch of the “world’s first affordable, mass-market fuel cell electric vehicles as early as 2017”.
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The unique collaboration across three continents and three companies would help define global specifications and component standards and would, they said, send a “clear signal to suppliers, policymakers and the industry to encourage the further development of hydrogen infrastructure worldwide”.
“The goal of the collaboration is to jointly develop a common fuel cell electric vehicle system while reducing investment costs associated with the engineering of the technology. Each company will invest equally towards the project. The strategy to maximise design commonality, leverage volume and derive efficiencies through economies of scale will help to launch the world’s first affordable, mass-market FCEVs as early as 2017,” the automakers said in a statement.
Daimler, Ford and Nissan already have over 60 years of cumulative experience developing FCEVs which have logged over 10m km in test drives around the world in customers’ hands and as part of demonstration projects in diverse conditions.
The partners plan to develop a common fuel cell stack and fuel cell system that can be used by each company in the launch of highly differentiated, separately branded FCEVs, which produce no CO2 emissions while driving.
“Fuel cell electric vehicles are the obvious next step to complement today’s battery electric vehicles as our industry embraces more sustainable transportation,” said Nissan Motor EVP Mitsuhiko Yamashita. “We look forward to a future where we can answer many customer needs by adding FCEVs on top of battery EVs within the zero-emission lineup.”
“We are convinced that fuel cell vehicles will play a central role for zero-emission mobility in the future. Thanks to the high commitment of all three partners we can put fuel cell e-mobility on a broader basis,” said Daimler R&D chief Thomas Weber.
“Working together will significantly help speed this technology to market at a more affordable cost to our customers,” said Ford product development head Raj Nair. “We will all benefit from this relationship as the resulting solution will be better than any one company working alone.”
Engineering work on both the fuel cell stack and the fuel cell system will be done jointly by the three companies at several locations around the world. The partners are also studying the joint development of other FCEV components to generate even further synergies.
