Ford Focus Fuel Cell - Hydrogen For The Masses

By Rebecca Kavanagh, FCN - Ford Motor Company is not content to take a backseat position in protecting the environment. With the world’s enormous reliance on fossil fuels, Ford has no choice but to seriously contend with the matter of global warming. That’s why the company has launched an urgent, multilevel approach to finding solutions.

Ford’s strategy for sustainability is built around a variety of technologies that attack this challenge from several angles. Today’s focus is:

Hydrogen-Powered Vehicles

Ford began working on hydrogen technology in the early 1990s. The company’s first hydrogen internal combustion engine demonstration vehicle, released in 2001, was based on a lightweight aluminum sedan body, which also was used in the development of the company’s first drivable hydrogen fuel cell vehicle.

The company currently has a fleet of 30 hydrogen-powered Focus fuel cell vehicles on the road as part of a worldwide, seven-city program to conduct real world testing of fuel cell technology. The fleet has accumulated more than 650,000 miles since its inception. With this fleet on the ground, information is being generated in different local environmental conditions that can be integrated into future fuel cell vehicle propulsion systems.