GM Light Duty Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Validation Data

Technical Report · Thu May 24 04:00:00 EDT 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1479624· OSTI ID:1479624

VeCasey, Pamela ^[1]

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1. General Motors LLC, Pontiac, MI (United States); General Motors LLC

General Motors LLC (GM) completed a multi-phase project with the Department of Energy to validate light-duty fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) performance and durability using dynamometer fuel cell system and real-world vehicle performance data. This project began with GM’s Gen 0 Fuel Cell Fleet vehicles with Technology Insertion operating strategies and materials, and extended to GM’s Gen 1 and early Gen 2 commercial-design intent Fuel Cell stacks and Fuel Cell Systems. The intent of this project was to understand how fuel cell materials, system architectures, and operating strategies impact fuel cell stack durability under fully dynamic operating conditions such as those seen in a light duty vehicle application. More than 87,000 hours of system run time were accumulated under this project simulating several vehicle lifetimes under aggressive driver usage conditions. Lessons learned from this demonstration project have helped expedite the development of a commercially viable, zero-petroleum, zero-emission, Fuel Cell propulsion system. Durability test results have enabled a substantial reduction in the precious metal content in the Fuel Cell Stack with each successive generation of stack design. Stack lifetimes between the first and current design iterations have increased nearly tenfold, while the overall precious metal content has been reduced by approximately 85%. The Gen 2 system power density (kW/gPt) is over five times that of the Gen 0 system. In addition, run time voltage degradation as a function of total platinum was reduced by more than an order of magnitude between the first and last phase of this project. GM is proceeding with a low volume production program aided by the results of the durability testing performed under this cooperative agreement.

• Research Organization: General Motors LLC, Pontiac, MI (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Vehicle Technologies Office (EE-3V)
• DOE Contract Number: EE0005969
• OSTI ID: 1479624
• Report Number(s): DOE-GMLLC--05969
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

08 HYDROGEN
25 ENERGY STORAGE
33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS
fuel cell electric vehicle