The really cool thing about this Riversimple Urban Car is that the fuel cell is going to be much smaller meaning that you will need less hydrogen on board.
The vehicle is no bigger than a Smart car, weighing just 350kg, and has been developed over three years by teams at Oxford and Cranfield universities. It can reach 50mph and travel in excess of 200 miles, consuming the equivalent petrol energy of 300mpg in hydrogen.
The power in this car actually comes from a very small 6kw fuel cell which is actually very small compared to the 100kw in the Honda Clarity. it is very important to keep the weight down on this car as it allows the speed of the car to be heavily increased.
There is a bank of ultracapacitors to store this electricity, which in turn provides most of the accelerating power, allowing for a small fuel cell.
The great thing about this design is that it will be placed online making it available for all car manufactuers to use at their own will.
One of the great things is that you can lease this car and the lease will actually cover you for the cost of the fuel too.
Hugo Spowers, head of Riversimple, said: “Cars evolved under very different constraints to those of today, so we must move on. Of course we now realise that we much minimize the resource source of selling cars which is what these cars are trying to do.”
“The Riversimple Urban Car represents a major step towards practical 21st century personal transport and towards the fulfilment of my great-grandfather’s ambitions for accessible personal transport but this time combining his other passions: light weight and high efficiency,” said Piech.
The real question to ask is will they be upgrading things like used cars to make them greener? If you have recently gone out and purchased a Audi R8 then you are not going to be pleased when you cannot upgrade it to make it a bit greener. Cheap Audiare just one of the brands that needs to be looked into.
