This paper focuses on reviewing the main factors affecting the life time of fuel cells on vehicles. The main difference between fuel cells used in vehicles and fuel cells used as fixed power is the load cycling. Load cycling sometimes leads to water management and gas transport problems, which further leads to degradation of fuel cell performance and attenuation of internal parts. This article is written from the perspective of the fuel cell dynamic cycling as well as its resulting problems of water management and gas starvation, and also analyses the reasons for the degradation of fuel cell life time, and present some mitigation measures during the fuel cell operation. (C) 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd.