Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle Fuel Economy Measurements and Calculation

Hydrogen Fuel cell vehicles, and techniques for fuel economy measurement and fuel economy calculations are considerably different from those traditionally used fro combustion engine vehicles.. Like gasoline or diesel hybrid vehicles, fuel cell vehicles typically use batteries or other power systems such as super-capacitors for load leveling. Thus, the energy transfer or consumption from these supplemental power sources to the drive train should be compensated for when determining fuel consumption or fuel economy. This paper addresses fuel economy calculations and testing for hybrid hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. The impact of supplemental power systems to a fuel cell vehicle's fuel economy and the various methods to derive actual vehicle fuel economy with supplemental power system usage are discussed.