Fuel Cell Hybrid Commercial Vehicle (FCHCV)

"Vehicle emission regulations and government policy are becoming more stringent. In terms of regulations, Euro 6 has been active for light passenger and commercial vehicles since 2014 and OEMs need to meet 95g/km CO2 target by 2020\. Since diesel scandal in 2015, government and council restrict petrol vehicles in 2030 to 2040\. In order to meet new emission regulations and social requirement, OEMs realize conventional technology is not enough and heavily invest in electrified powertrains.

Commercial vehicle sector follows same electrification way as passenger car sector. Heavy-duty vehicles are soon expected to come under severe CO2 regulation in Europe as the sector's CO2 target are announced in 2018\. Tesla has announced its plan to develop pure electric truck by 2019 and other conventional OEMs, Daimler and Caterpillar, are working on an electric commercial vehicle. Renault introduces electric van, Kangoo Z.E since 2011\.

Having said that, there is still bottleneck of BEV penetration: short driving range and charging time. It is more critical for commercial vehicles since for longer driving range the more battery capacity is necessary, which needs more charging time. Fuel cell technology could mitigate this problem with relatively high energy density compared to the battery. In this project, the two powertrain concepts (FCREx and FCHEV) and fuel cell types (PEMFCand DMFC) are further combined with three different commercial vehicle types -- vans, buses, and trucks. From this project, OEMs can find appropriate system architecture and fuel cell type for different vehicle type and optimize the components sizing and controller while meeting commercial vehicle requirement. The project outcomes not only help OEMs to understand whether they can meet CO2 emission target but also help the government to predict whether they can meet emission target in the city."