A superior hybrid fuel cell vehicle solution for congested urban areas

Abstract

This paper presents a promising solution to the problem of the bad environmental impacts and the high operating cost of the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) gasoline powered vehicles. In Toronto, the capital of Ontario, the traffic jam is becoming a regular flavor of every day's commute that make the driving pattern featured with low speed and a lot of stops and goes. This driving pattern increases the pollution problem that already exists due to the large number of vehicles in Toronto streets and reduces the lifetime of the engine and the brakes leading to a more running cost. This study investigates the performance of a hybrid Fuel Cell (FC)/battery vehicle configuration, which is considered as one of the most promising clean vehicles in comparison with the traditional ICE vehicles. In this study, a model of an ICE mid-size vehicle was developed and validated against experimental acceleration tests. The ICE vehicle model was modified by replacing the ICE power-train with a FC and battery power-train while keeping the other vehicle parameters the same. A comparison between ICE and hybrid FC/battery vehicle configurations was conducted using a representative alignment load cycle in Toronto. It was found that the hybrid FC/battery configuration is much better than the ICE version in terms of emission, fuel economy, efficiency and speed tracking error due to the faster response of the control system.