(February 25, 2011) FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The Mercedes-Benz F-CELL World Drive embarked on the second leg — the North American segment — of its tour of the world today with three B-Class F-CELL hydrogen vehicles leaving Fort Lauderdale for New Orleans.

In total, the vehicles will be covering around 4,660 miles in the U.S. and Canada, after which they will leave via Seattle to continue their journey to Australia.

The first leg of the tour began in southern Europe on Jan. 29 clocking 2,226 miles.

The F-CELL World Drive will be traveling across the North American continent until March 18, demonstrating the potential of fuel cell technology. In addition, with what is to date a unique undertaking, Mercedes-Benz is reaffirming the need to develop a comprehensive global hydrogen infrastructure.

"We will have reached market maturity with fuel cell technology by 2015 at the latest. From that point we would then be in a position to bring several 100,000 vehicles, in a variety of different model series, onto the roads. For example we are also planning a sedan model with fuel cell drive and will thereby expand our portfolio of local zero-emission vehicles.

Therefore, by that time, an infrastructure which allows the everyday operation of such vehicles, needs to be in place," said Dr. Thomas Weber, the Daimler AG Board Member responsible for Group Research and Development for Mercedes-Benz Cars.

"Now is therefore the time to increase speed and consistently develop the hydrogen filling station network."

The second leg of the F-CELL World Drive is taking the three fuel cell vehicles across the North American continent, from Miami right across the U.S. and as far as Vancouver in Canada. The route then continues by airplane from Seattle to Australia. In doing so, the journey will also highlight the gaps in the American hydrogen infrastructure.

By the end of the U.S. tour the B-Class F-CELL vehicles will have been refueled around 35 times during 18 legs — but only one time will be at a public hydrogen filling station in Torrance near Los Angeles.

Local events in San Francisco, Sacramento, Salem and Vancouver will also provide the opportunity for an intensive exchange of ideas with local media, visitors and residents on the subject of fuel cell technology.

During this leg of the trip, which is scheduled to take roughly three weeks, participants can expect to enjoy a varied program providing not only extensive opportunity to experience the B-Class F-CELL, but also interesting information on the topic of sustainable mobility.

On 1 March the tour will pay a visit to the Daimler car2go mobility project in Austin, Texas. The next item of the agenda, due to take place on March 10, is an intensive exchange on the topic of electric mobility at Tesla Motors in Palo Alto.

Tesla designs and builds high performance electric cars and supplies powertrain components to leading OEMs. Tesla makes the lithium-ion battery and charger for Daimler's smart fortwo electric drive and the Mercedes-Benz A-Class E-CELL. I

n Vancouver the participants will be the guests of the Automotive Fuel Cell Cooperation (AFCC). This is where the fuel cell stack for the B-Class F-CELL, for example, was developed in close cooperation with Daimler research and development staff from Germany. The company was established in 2007, with Daimler as the majority shareholder (50.1 percent).