<p>Fuel cell electric vehicles represent a zero tailpipe-emission alternative to battery electric vehicles in the long-term replacement of internal combustion engine vehicles. The design of the drive system, including the fuel cell stack, electric machine, and battery, offers a wide range of configuration possibilities. In particular, the characteristics of the fuel cell stack are strongly influenced by multiple design parameters, which directly affect system efficiency. In this paper, we present a fuel cell system synthesis framework for the systematic generation of new fuel cell drive concepts. The synthesis is embedded into a comprehensive drive system synthesis and optimization toolchain, enabling holistic evaluations of complete powertrain architectures. Using this approach, multiple fuel cell system designs are investigated for both a conventional fuel cell electric vehicle and a plug-in fuel cell electric vehicle, under legal driving cycles as well as representative customer operation. The results demonstrate that the optimal fuel cell system configuration differs significantly between the two use cases, highlighting the importance of application-specific system design.</p>