The Future Needs to Look Like The Future

It has been exactly six months since I first took delivery of the F-Cell back in May, and I have now driven the car a grand total of 6810 miles so far.  To date, there are no major issues to really report and overall, the car has assimilated seamlessly into my daily commute routine.  Aside from the need to more frequently refuel (again, an average range of about 170 miles per tank), and the need to refill at specific stations only (mostly Torrance and on occasion, Culver City), there hasn't really been any changes to my life driving an electric fuel cell vehicle.

But is that such a good thing?  My writings have been pretty much peaches and cream for the most part with no big complaints and nothing really notable to bring up.  And there in lies my biggest criticism of the Mercedes-Benz F-Cell: it's just like any other car.

And I understand the strategy that Mercedes-Benz has taken with this first attempt at bringing a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle to market: "Look, it's absolutely no different than your normal gas car!"  They have gone to great lengths to make the F-Cell as indistinguishable from a normal B200 gas powered model, and aside from a few exterior labels, the seafoam colored paint and the subtle screen in the nav display that shows the energy flow, the average Joe Driver would be hard pressed to discern the difference between the F-Cell and a typical B200.  And I contend this strategy taken by Mercedes-Benz is a huge mistake.

Hydrogen Fuel Cell vehicles, as we all know, still cost a fortune to produce.  The Fuel Cell stack requires precious metals and the entire vehicle needs to amortize decades of research and development investments.  Mercedes-Benz will never admit it, but they currently lose an exorbitant amount of money for every F-Cell car they lease out and put on the road.  And that's true for virtually every new technology available to consumers, from mobile phones to tablets to PC's to video games. The recoup of investment is made through the eventual volume sales that are achieved, and the sustained sales by promoting the "next best thing", and luring customers to trade up every few years, continuing the viscous cycle of American consumerism. 

But when Sony launches a new video game system, they don't make it "look" like the old system.  When Samsung introduces a new mobile phone, they don't boast in their marketing how indistinguishable it is from their old phone.  People like "the next best thing" and early technology acceptors actually WANT to experience new procedures and processes.

I argue that the first pioneers of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (myself included) aren't "Greenies" who plant trees and hug whales, but are "Techies" who are looking for the next big thing in personal conveyance.  And if you profile the average "Greenie", I'll be frank and say that they can't afford a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle.  $900 a month lease is nothing to sneeze at, and no matter how you cut the math with the inclusive fuel and the insurance, that's still $900 of your hard earned buck out of pocket every single month.  Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles aren't a necessity, it's still a luxury, just like an expensive smart phone or tablet device, allowing only "Techys" to embrace the cost of admission, and relegating "Greenies" to their beat up used Toyota Priuseses with Obama stickers and 1984 Mercedes 300TD Hart to Hart biodiesel-converted wagons. 

The current B-Class, and the F-Cell that is based on it, is already on it's way out (see previous post on the all-new 2012 Mercedes B-Class introduced at the Frankfurt Motor Show below).  The new platform on which the new B-Class sits has also been developed to accept "future powertrains" which we all presume will include hybrid, battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell technologies.  And while many improvements have been made to the exterior and interior of the car, I'm afraid it too, isn't enough to wow the early acceptors of this new hydrogen fuel cell technology.

The Nissan Leaf is a good case study of developing a complete package of not only technological achievement, but one of "packaging" achievement as well.  The exterior design, with its high mounted unique headlights and LED tail lights shows other motorists that this is something truly unique and special.  Step inside and you are greeted by a simple yet elegantly styled dash and center console that houses neat lights and screens and monitors that clearly defines it as tomorrow's car.  Whether people actually use all the bells and whistles in the Leaf is of in consequence, just like half of the features of the Apple iPad are probably never accessed by most customers.  But the mere fact that these "toys" exist drives up the emotional desire for this product which is already sold in the pragmatic side of the brain through it's actual technological capabilities.  Mercedes-Benz needs to take a hard look at the Nissan Leaf and learn from this marketing and packaging success story, especially when it comes to the American market. 

The new B-Class continues on with an understated and unassuming design, and I'm concerned that the fuel cell version, slated for introduction in 2014, won't be able to make the visual impact that the Leaf, Volt and even Prius are able to achieve in the eyes of the general public.  In addition, the new 2014 Mercedes F-Cell will be up against a whole new crop of technological vehicles from newcomers like Tesla, Fiskar and Mitsubishi, all of which, I might add, look like nothing else currently on the road and are loaded with gadgetry.  Unless some serious upgrades are made to the on board technologies seen through the nav screen and the instrument cluster on the new 2014 F-Cell, and provide both the actual and perceived sense of "cutting edge technology", all of Mercedes-Benz's efforts to perfect and produce this amazing piece of engineering will fail to attract new customers to the mix based merely on the marketing and packaging shortcomings.  And that would be a shame.