German Minister President Receives a B-Class F-Cell as His Official Car

German Minister President Winfried Kretschmann have received a Mercedes B-Class F-Cell has his official vehicle when he performs government duties in Berlin. It is meant to show that the car’s technology is ready for the real world.

"We firmly believe in electric mobility for the future - using the battery and fuel cell in equal measure,” said Herbert Kohler, head of research and sustainability at Daimler.

The F-Cell stores hydrogen at 700 bar to give the car a 400km range, and it can be completely refueled in under three minutes. Mercedes has tested over 300 of them in Europe and the United States since 2010 and covered over 9 million kilometers.

The next steps for fuel cell vehicles are to make the fuel cell stack technology cheaper and create an infrastructure to refuel them.

"As a next step, the technology must be made accessible to customers worldwide. Politicians, energy providers and automobile manufacturers must set the scene for this in close international dialogue," said Kohler.

Daimler says it will have more “competitive” EVs on the market by 2017, and it is working with the German government to build 400 hydrogen refueling stations by 2023.