A key obstacle to wide adoption of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is the lack of a refueling infrastructure. But a suitcase-sized innovation by San Francisco-based Zero Emission Industries is proving to be an effective pass-through from hydrogen filled tankers to fuel cell powered vehicles and vessels.

Indeed, a Honda CR-V e:FCEV will be the first fuel cell-powered vehicle to compete in this weekend’s Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, filled with hydrogen from the device called the FTCase.

Weighing in at just under 100 pounds and measuring 21 inches wide by 16 inches deep and 11.7 inches high, the FTCase acts like a portable gas pump, transporting the hydrogen from a supply tanker into the vehicle or vessel needing to be refueled.

In the case of the Honda at Pikes Peak, it will be stationed in pit where the driver can quickly add hydrogen to the car’s tank by simply connecting the nozzle to the car and pushing a few buttons.

“What FTcase does, in general, is it eliminates the need for built-in infrastructure and lets you access hydrogen for your vehicle or boat or whatever it is, anywhere that you need it. So that's really applicable in the commercial sector, as you know, new trucks and busses and cars are coming online, and they don't want to wait for fueling stations,” said Dr. Joe Pratt, CEO of ZEI, in an interview. “So we made it to be super simple, easy to use by anybody who can use an iPhone essentially.”

“Racing Pikes Peak wouldn't be possible without Zero Emission Industries and their FTcase,”‍ said James Nazarian, Large Project Leader Commercial Motorsports, Honda Racing Corporation U.S.A., in a statement.

The FTcase was originally developed as a way to deliver hydrogen to a fuel cell powered ferry operating on San Francisco Bay in the absence of permanent refueling stations at each dock, according to Pratt.

What the company later discovered is the device can play an essential role supporting the defense industry, but for a different reason.

"The U.S. military needs vehicles, power and fueling systems that minimize detection signatures in the sensor-heavy environments of modern conflict. Hydrogen cuts thermal and acoustic trails while enabling reliable power generation at the edge — solving the signature and logistics problems in one move," said ZEI solutions architect and former U.S. Navy Special Warfare Combatant-Craft Crewman Zachary Hooker, in a statement.

That’s a powerful reason to make it easier to quickly refuel the equipment in a wide array of environments including deserts and waterways where there is no hydrogen fueling infrastructure.

“An enlisted person out in the field with no technical knowledge or training on hydrogen is able to transfer that hydrogen from the tank into that boat or car or whatever it is safely and easily, and it's so small that they can put this on the back of a truck, or, you know, drop it out of an airplane or whatever it is, and it's instant hydrogen,” Pratt said.

FTcases aren’t yet being deployed by the U.S. military while ZEI works on being able to provide the power system and focusing on the maritime side right now, along with the FTcase to enable the fueling, Pratt explained

Actual fuel production is under development on the battlefield as ZEI works to develop what it calls its entire hydrogen ecosystem--fuel production, fueling and fuel cell all in one package that's mobile and able to be dropped in anywhere.

Could FTcases replace the need for full-scale hydrogen filling stations as a means of broadening adoption of fuel cell vehicles? In a pure technical sense, perhaps, says Pratt.

“If you're doing a transaction and someone's paying you for that hydrogen, you better have a very accurate count of how much they owe you. Those kinds of things we do separately from the box today,” said Pratt. “If we were to put that into a retail type environment, we would have to integrate those capabilities into the box, and we just haven't seen the demand to do that yet.”

But there will be demand for enough hydrogen to power the Honda CR-V e:FCEV up and down Pikes Peak and that’ll come from that carry-on sized FTcase standing by in the pit.