Commercialization and Public Acceptance of Fuel Cell Vehicles

Abstract

Currently, major automotive companies are involved intensively in the development of hydrogen-fuelled FCV’s in order to be globally commercialized by 2005. However, the current cost of FCV’s and lack of commercials and information addressing environmental, economical and technological advantages associated with such vehicles leave the general public to be completely unaware. This paper presents a general assessment of commercialization and public acceptance of utilizing FCV’s in terms of their costs in comparison to ICV’s, and safety and dependability at various scenarios over the next twenty years. A significant improvement in the cost fraction of FCV’s was achieved in the 1990’s in comparison with the cost fraction of ICV’s in the same period. Moreover, the calculated results demonstrated a lower cost of FCV’s and a higher safety and dependability could lead to a higher rate of commercialization and public acceptance.

Keywords: Hydrogen, energy, PEM fuel cell, fuel cell vehicle, internal combustion vehicle, public acceptance, commercialization, safety, dependability, cost fraction, fuel cell cost, pollution, emission, higher demand, innovative technology.