Abstract:

Fuel cell electric vehicles are generally considered to have broad development prospects due to their high efficiency and zero emissions. How to standardize the consistency of data and develop a unified and accurate evaluation method is an important topic. The difficulty is how to keep balance among scientificity, neutrality, and feasibility in the evaluation method. To evaluate the performance of vehicles in demonstration operation projects, China has issued the “Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Test Specifications”, which is an essential guide for the future development of fuel cell electric vehicles in China. This paper compares the test methods for critical parameters in this specification with those used in the United States and Japan. It explains China’s technical considerations in detail, including fuel cell system, rated power, the volume power density of the fuel cell stack, fuel cell system specific power, sub-zero cold start, and fuel cell electric vehicle range contributed by hydrogen. For the volume power density of the fuel cell stack, both the US Department of Energy and Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization have proposed technical goals. However, the lack of specific and detailed test methods has confused the industry. The authors propose a new test method using bipolar plate measurement based on scientificity, feasibility, and neutrality. This is the first time to define the measuring method of the volume and specific power density of the fuel cell stack. The authors put forward a feasible scheme for sub-zero cold start at the system level for sub-zero cold start. For the range contributed by hydrogen, the authors propose a new test method that can distinguish electric and hydrogen energy contributing. Furthermore, a hydrogen-to-electric conversion formula is proposed to calculate the equivalent hydrogen consumption, making it possible to compare the energy consumption between the plug-in and non-plug-in vehicles. At the same time, this approach is significant in helping fuel cell-related enterprises to understand the formulation of China’s “Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Test Specifications”. It should also help guide product design and predict China's fuel cell electric vehicle policy direction.