Mercedes B-class fuel-cell drivers tell all

We met in a Los Angeles gas station, directly under the landing lights of LAX's south runway, our conversation interrupted regularly by the Prattt & Whitney thrust of 757s and Super 80s. We could easily be the main characters in an espionage thriller, handing off secret documents at great personal risk.

But we're not. We're here because this is where you buy hydrogen and these guys want to talk about their hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles.

The meeting was arranged by Jin Takamura, a former auto industry analyst, PR guy and marketing executive and a reforming British car enthusiast (“I left the automotive business over 10 years ago so I can make more money and squander it on ridiculous English crap like an Escort Cosworth, Aston DB7 Vantage, Lotus Evora, original Range Rover and a Rover Sterling 827 SLi with 5-speed manual!!!” he said in an e-mail, the exclamation marks his.).

Also present is Ian Sanders, who retired after a career at Garrett Turbo; Loki Efaw, a bank vice president in charge of IT; and Heesoo Lee, a tech entrepreneur who owns Worklab CC, a collaborative coworking studio with everything from 3D printers to laser cutters for people who need to build all manner of prototypes. The common thread among this disparate crew is that all four guys are leasing Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-Cells. Takamura brought them together to show the press (i.e. us) that the future really does lie in hydrogen fuel cells.

They are not necessarily what you'd call zealots, they don't stop people in gas stations and try to convert them. Indeed, usually people stop them.

“They say, 'Hey, what is that thing?' ” Takamura said.

He explains to them about fuel cells, electric motors, hydrogen and the future of transportation. If he's a zealot, he is an articulate and patient one.

Indeed, patience is perhaps the most important quality for hydrogen fuel cell advocates. The old joke is that hydrogen fuel cells are the powertrain of the future, always have been and always will be.

“I remember reading a magazine article about them in 1963,” said Sanders. “I thought, 'That seems like an interesting idea.”

More and more carmakers are thinking so, too. Three cooperative agreements between the world's leading carmakers have sprung up this year: GM and Honda, Toyota and BMW and Daimler, Ford and Nissan have all announced cooperative programs aimed at reducing the cost and complexity of fuel cells.

As any high school physics student knows, fuel cells are expensive, at least right now, representing half the cost of any fuel cell electric vehicle. Of that half, one third is the price of the precious metals required to make the fuel cell stack separate the electricity from the hydrogen. The most precious of those metals is platinum. (Attention platinum-rich countries: prepare to be liberated!) Though press releases from companies you've never heard of come out weekly claiming to have solved the cheap fuel cell conundrum, the cost problem remains elusive.

Likewise the act of separating hydrogen molecules from all the other molecules to which it inherently clings is energy and cost-intensive. A fuel cell needs pure hydrogen to operate and to get that requires a lot of heat or electricity, processes that give off CO2 and other gasses.

Our four friends are aware that hydrogen isn't perfect, but they cite the cleaner sources of hydrogen, such as a Fountain Valley, Calif., sewage treatment plant that takes its methane gas and extracts the hydrogen from it.

“I'll drive out of my way to refuel there,” Lee said.

Using off-peak electricity to separate hydrogen through electrolysis could work, too. It's not simple.

And while the four B-Class F-Cell drivers appreciate the environmental benefits of hydrogen, there were more pressing reasons why they plunked down $599 a month for their leases.

“My Prius with the gold sticker was expiring,” said Efaw, referring to the stickers that allowed his high-efficiency Prius hybrid access to the carpool lane with only one occupant.

Since California tightened restrictions on carpool access, only greeen-sticker PHEVs and white-sticker zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) are allowed in with just one person aboard, making fuel cells look suddenly more attractive.

“I looked at the Clarity but didn't get it. Then I saw one of these, maybe it was Jin's, at a fueling station…”

“I get stalked all the time,” said Takamura.

With a fuel cell car they can each drive in the car pool lane solo, a huge perk in traffic-lousy LA.

So while there was that motivation to get into fuel cell cars in the first place, all four nonetheless see the fuel cell as a step much farther into the future than a pure electric powered by batteries.

“I was debating: CNG, EV, Model S,” said Efaw. “Then this opportunity came.”

“There was no range anxiety, no special outlet required at my house,” said Lee. “It felt like the next jump instead of being a bridge gap -- an EV driven by hydrogen.”

"I felt the fuel cell was the next step,” said Takamura, who has a Facebook page titled “Prius HA.” “You don't have to plug it in, you don't have to wait hours for it to recharge. I can get 200 miles range in a couple minutes.”

“Hybrids were a little bit different, a little bit greener, but they never captured my imagination,” said Sanderson.

“It [driving the F-Cell] is not much different from what I was used to driving,” said Efaw. “I enjoy it because it's less of a hassle [than an electric car].”

“Enjoy is a good word,” said Sanderson. “The Highlander [his other car] sits in the driveway, once in a while we start it to make sure it works.”

Takamura sees hydrogen fuel as inevitable.

“As the price per barrel of oil goes up, there's going to be an economic shift away from petroleum,” he said. “When petroleum retailers and manufacturers have nothing to sell, then they're going to say, 'What's next?”

But what about the pollution caused in refining, compressing and transporting hydrogen?

“You have that in petroleum production,” said Takamura. “Top Gear said the [Honda FCX] Clarity is the car of tomorrow because it's like the car of today. I haven't changed my driving habits at all.”

Of course, all four of these fuel cell enthusiasts live and work reasonably close to the six public hydrogen refueling stations currently operating in Southern California, which is a big part of their embrace of the technology.

“I believe it's the future,” said Efaw. “As we get more infrastructure we'll be able to drive longer distances.”

While there are only a couple hundred fuel cell vehicles in private hands now, more are planned. Honda, Toyota and Hyundai have said they want FCEVs in showrooms by 2015, while Daimler, Ford and Nissan have set 2017 as a goal for greater FCEV offerings.

These four drivers represent some of the first unrestricted hydrogen fuel cell vehicle leases, and they are all enthusiastic about the technology. Others will have other opinions, of course. Comment away below.

By Mark Vaughn