September 2004

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DaimlerChrysler which has begun to place the initial batch of its 60 F-Cell cars into the hands of customers, including German chancellor Gerhard Schröder (See Briefs), is already working on its next generation of fuel cell vehicles. A company source tells H&FCL unattributably that the next generation is expected to be launched in 2-3 years with a “freezable” fuel cell system design, meaning a design that can be translated into a mass-producible product. Whether that version will in fact become the platform for a fuel cell car to be offered to the general public then was not made clear. Nor is it clear what that fuel cell car would look like: The source was non-committal when asked whether it would be another reincarnation of the same A-Class-based architecture, or whether it would be incorporated into a different design which seems to be a possibility. P.S.: DaimlerChrysler, or rather, Mercedes-Benz, plans to launch a small car based on the A-Class architecture in the United States within 18 months. It’s not going to look like the A-Class, which is not sold in the U.S., and it will be a little bigger, but that’s about all a Mercedes spokesman would tell H&FCL.