Some are going the way of the electric car, and some are going the way of the fuel cell. Some are doing both. Mercedes-Benz has decided to take it up a notch and do three at once - an electric vehicle, an extended range electric vehicle and a fuel cell vehicle. When January 2009 rolls around, the 2009 Detroit Motor Show will bring us the new Mercedes-Benz Concept BlueZero, which comes in 3 variants.
The first variant is the Concept BlueZero E-Cell. It’s powered by an electric motor and a lithium ion battery that supports plug-in charging that give you 100km of maximum range in 2 hours of charging. That’s going to be an issue in Europe - city driving will be fine but what about cross country tours across the vast European continent?
That’s where the BlueZero E-Plus Cell comes in. It’s an extended range electric vehicle, which means it has an internal combustion engine installed at the back that burns through regular fuel not to power the wheels but to generate electricity to recharge the batteries. This takes the range up to 600km, and you can get more just by topping up the fuel.
Finally you have the BlueZero F-Cell, which uses a fuel cell that produces electricity from hydrogen, something Stuttgart have already been dabbling in in the past.
Source Paultan.org
