JOHN DEERE DISPLAYS FUEL CELL TECHNOLOGY DEMONSTRATOR VEHICLE
WITH HELP FROM HYDROGENICS

Deere & Company has been working with Hydrogenics Corp., a Canadian fuel cell manufacturer, to develop a technology demonstrator fuel cell-powered Commercial Work Vehicle (CWV), a modified John Deere ProGator utility vehicle. “What we did with the ProGator was that we selected that chassis because it was small and offered an opportunity to demonstrate what was possible using fuel cell electric drives.” Said Bruce Wood, Director of John Deere ePower Technologies.

With an electric power source, a manufacturer can drive it to an electric motor and turn the wheels or it can be driven to an inverter to make AC power. “The power strip that you see in the back of the commercial work vehicle is a full 20 kW,” said Wood. “And we can take that out into 60 hertz, 100 volts or 40 volts or conceivable, if you charge the inverter, it could come out at 400 hertz.”

In building this demonstrator application, John Deere was able to implement many features including four-wheel steer. “Once we had the electric steering on it, it was easy to duplicate that front wheel front and rear and just put the switch on the dash where you can change it from conventional steering, which has a locked rear wheel to cranked steering where both wheels turn in parallel so that you can actually drive the vehicle sideways,” said Wood. “And the counter-steering tier steers the front wheel different from the back wheel, which tightens its turning radius pretty dramatically. What we were trying to do there is to show its maneuverability. Mechanically you can do that but it’s very complex and very costly.

John Deere initiated their ePower Technologies group to hope to gain insight into the potential for fuel cells and electric drives. Hydrogenics was seen as a viable partner because they were able to produce the compact, low-pressure fuel cell in the 10 to 30 kW range that John Deere desired. Wood explained, “We were also looking for a company that had a pretty solid technological base and Hydrogenics has a relationship with General Motors. In fact Gm owns about 21 percent of Hydrogenics and they have access to a lot of GM technology. That was important to us, not only could they have a fuel cell that was good for today, but as we develop we could see the potential commercialization path.”