ZEBRA Battery system for range extender architecture in a Fuel Cell Hybrid Vehicle

With the requirements for reducing emissions and improving fuel economy, new markets have become attractive for automotive companies that are developing electric, hybrid, and plug-in vehicles using new technologies candidates to be implemented in the next generations of vehicles. Hybrid vehicles (HVs) offer improved fuel economy and take the advantage of existing fuel infrastructure but still depend entirely on petroleum to charge the battery pack. On the other hand, vehicles totally based on fuel cell (FC) have been proposed, but still face significant improvement above all for high cost that limit market penetration. In the proposed configuration, a FC system of 5 kW works as batteries recharge and provides, following an identified strategy, the necessary power to the driving cycle to increase the autonomy of the vehicle.