The International Partnership for the Hydrogen and Fuel Cells in the Economy (IPHE) recently held its 2010 Technical Achievement Awards Conference & the 18th World Hydrogen Energy Conference (WHEC18) in Essen, Germany. The R&D of Fuel Cell Bus (FCB) and Olympic Demonstration carried out by Tsinghua’s Department of Automotive Engineering won the 2010 Technical Achievement Award. In the award ceremony, Mr. Veit Steinle, the minister of German Federal Ministry of Transport, chaired the conference and spoke highly of the Tsinghua R&D team and its project leader Tsinghua Professor Ouyang Minggao.

Supported by the 863 Plan during the Tenth-Five and Eleventh-Five Years, the FCB R&D team of Tsinghua has successfully developed 15 FCBs in 4 generations since 2002 and achieved a series of key technologies of FCB. The team also built the first vehicular hydrogen production and refilling station, compiled the relevant standards and regulations for hydrogen economy, and developed widely international and domestic communication and public education. The Fuel Cell + Battery hybrid configuration significantly reduced the vehicle cost and failure rate and meet the needs of the commercial demonstration, which helped the team to serve the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games successfully and fulfilled the one-year public transit demonstration.