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Clean and efficient mobility is considered an important contribution for reduction of global warming emissions and decrease of primary energy requirement. These factors have driven the developments of advanced vehicles. Powertrain technology is one of the key factors in these developments. Among the alternative technologies, fuel cell systems have a high potential and received consideration from most major automotive companies. Nevertheless, maturity of fuel cell systems for the automotive application has not been reached yet, and improvements with respect to durability and in particular cost are required. In collaboration with Belenos Clean Power, Paul Scherrer Institut is developing concepts for fuel cell systems (FCS) for the automotive application. The FCS technology is based on H2/O2 PEFC technology. The use of pure oxygen as the oxidant is not commonly used for powertrain applications where the H2/air fuel cell systems are dominating. A H2/O2 PEFC yet brings several advantages such as a higher specific power, higher efficiency, higher power dynamics, easier water management, lower stress due to the environment (altitude, humidity, air pollution) and lower balance of plant consumption (no air-compressor). The only disadvantage is the need of oxygen on-board storage. This can be partly balanced by the higher efficiencies achieved by such powertrains. In addition to the intrinsic advantages of oxygen FCS, particular efforts were made in the integration of auxiliary components, resulting in a compact system. Finally, because cathode and anode are closed circuits, low operating pressure can be achieved, giving an additional degree of freedom in the system and powertrain management.