Do cars with fuel cells also need a battery?
New powertrain concepts, such as fuel cells, certainly don’t make the car battery obsolete. Even the cars of tomorrow will not work without a battery. Just like starting a combustion engine, the fuel cell also needs electrical energy from a battery to get it going. And when the vehicle is parked, the battery continues to deliver the power for the active electronics on board, such as the central locking system, interior lighting or anti-theft devices. In only a few years’ time, today’s alternator, as the generator of electrical power, will no longer be up to the task of satisfying the ever-increasing demand for energy in cars. This is why the automobile industry is working on new concepts: Among these are the more powerful crankshaft starter generator, which can also be used as an electric motor; or small and compact fuel cells with some five kilowatts of power that can be operated with gasoline and one day, with hydrogen. The advantage of such small fuel cells is that they produce elec
