“VW with fuel cell: 2,000 kilometers on one tank”

In October 2022, PC-WELT — one of Germany’s biggest tech magazines — explained the joint patent to a mainstream tech audience: “VW with fuel cell: 2,000 kilometers on one tank”. The piece introduced the ceramic-membrane approach and the company behind it, kraftwerk TUBES from Saxony.

For that audience the simplest comparison is weight: a battery must carry its energy as metal, while the aSOFC converts it from fuel. 100 Wh take a one-gram ceramic tube plus about 9 grams of fuel — roughly 10 grams in total, where a comparable lithium cell weighs about 355 grams. That is why a test vehicle could cover 2,000 km on one tank — an equivalent battery pack would weigh nearly a ton.

Mainstream tech coverage carried the story beyond the automotive press. The substance is public: the joint patent DE102020119021B3, filed in July 2020 and granted in 2021, and five years of proof-of-concept work with the Volkswagen Group. kraftwerk names the development cooperation and the patent — no more.

If the weight comparison caught you, the technology page on this site takes it further, layer by layer, with the datasheets available on request; the vehicle catalogue lists 38 models upgraded by kraftwerk; the FAQ answers the most common questions. The original PC-WELT article is linked from this page.