Status of NHTSA's Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Vehicle Safety Research Program.

Safety information is vital to support the FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership, a cooperative automotive research effort between the U.S. Department ofEnergy, the U.S. Council for Automotive Research (USCAR), and fuel suppliers. This partnership began in 2003 as part of the President's goal to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil, improve vehicle efficiency, reduce vehicle emissions, and make fuel cell vehicles a practical and cost-effectivechoice for large numbers of Americans by 2020. NHTSA's safety initiative complements these efforts by conducting research to support determination of fuel system integrity performance criteria that address the unique hazards posed by the onboard storage of hydrogen and the operation of high voltage fuel cells used to provide electrical current for hydrogen fuel cell vehicle (HFCV) powertrains. This paper provides a description and timelineof the research tasks initiated in fiscal year 2009 to support the development or acceptance of proposed safety performance criteria for HFCVs. This is the third such status report published in these conference proceedings. The full text of this paper may be found at: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/esv/esv21/09-0507.pdf For the covering abstract see ITRD E145407.