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Ford, Renault-Nissan and Daimler have signed an agreement to develop fuel-cell electric vehicle technology that could bring such cars to market by 2017.
The move is intended to speed up availability of FCEVs and significantly reduce the investment costs, and is expected to lead the launch of the world's first affordable, mass market FCEVs as early as 2017, according to the alliance.
Collectively, the three car manufacturers have more than 60 years of experience in developing FCEVs including more than 10 million km of test drives. The partners plan to develop a common fuel-cell stack and fuel-cell system that can be used by each company to launch "highly differentiated, separately branded FCEVs, which produce no CO2 emissions while driving".
"FCEVs are the obvious next step to complement today's battery-electric vehicles as our industry embraces more sustainable transportation," said Mitsuhiko Yamashita, a board member of Nissan, supervising research and development. "We look forward to a future where we can answer many customer needs by adding FCEVs on top of battery EVs within the zero-emission line-up.
"Working together will significantly help speed this technology to market at a more affordable cost to our customers," said Raj Nair, group vice-president of Ford's global product development. "We will all benefit from this relationship as the resulting solution will be better than any one company working alone."
Meanwhile, BMW and Toyota have also signed an agreement to collaborate on fuel-cell development, along with a mid-sized sports vehicle, lightweight technology and improved lithium-ion batteries.
The companies said they are "convinced that fuel-cell technology is one of the solutions necessary to achieve zero emissions" and are hoping to complete a fuel-cell vehicle system by 2020. It added that a joint platform concept for a sports vehicle should be complete by the end of this year.
BMW chairman Norbert Reithofer said: "Toyota and BMW share the same strategic vision of future sustainable mobility. In light of the technological changes ahead, the entire automotive industry faces tremendous challenges, which we also regard as an opportunity. This collaboration is an important building block in keeping both companies on a successful course in the future." Vauxhall owners General Motors and PSA Peugeot Citroen have also recently spoken about its alliance, formed last year, regarding purchasing, logistics and vehicle development. The manufacturers will share platforms for a number of small and lower medium cars including crossovers and multi-purpose vehicles and are also aiming to develop a new generation of fuel efficient high performance three-cylinder petrol engines.
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