Hydrogen-powered salt flat racer concept fleshed out, complete with goldfish
BMWDesignworksUSA Hydrogen Salt Flat Racer - Click above to enlarge
Remember the 5th Annual LA Auto Show Design Challenge from a few months back? Designers put pen to paper (or, probably more accurately, mouse to mouse pad) in an effort to imagine what eco-friendly racecars would be like in the year 2025. The winning entry was the Mazda KAAN from the Mazda North American Operation design team, but there were plenty more interesting vehicles to consider, such as the BMW Hydrogen Powered Salt Flat Racer.The team from MINI Space wanted to know more about the Salt Flat Racer, so they sat down with the designers and put the interview up for the world to see. There's lots here that we hadn't noticed upon first inspection, such as the use of recycled BBQ grill wheels, an old oil drum, and a bomb shell. That's not the best part, though. Since the concept uses hydrogen that's extracted from an on-board water tank, the BMWDesignworksUSA team decided to put a few goldfish in there for fun. Read all about it here.
[Source: MINI Space]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
gorr 1:28PM (4/19/2009)
Quote from the article::'' the concept uses hydrogen that's extracted from an on-board water tank ''
The exact expression that i explained was an'' inboard water-electrolyzer '' , please use the correct word, it's not a water tank, it's a water electrolyzer. A water tank do not necessarilly produce hydrogen, a water electrolyzer produce hydrogen in great quantity for almost free and can power engines with more power because it don't burn like gasoline, it explode instead so it give more power. The hydrogen ice engines experimented by bmw and ford were not powerful very much because it was just a first try. Im sure they can build big v8 engines of 4000+ h.p without problems except problems with nasa, exxon, cia, saudi-arabia banks tied to bushs and rockfeller, citgo employees, car dealership mechanics, car tires engineers having to fing good traction for 4 000 h.p car, epa, doa, tata, nascar limp guys sponsored by sunoco, formula one limp drivers sponsored by shell and secret gay banks, all big car manufacturers having designed catalytics converters and having sold them to idiots car consumer having paid for that and still paying for that every days.
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Chris M 4:36PM (4/19/2009)
Um, Gorr, this concept drawing is a joke, a funny, a "Haha", it isn't serious at all and will never be built. That's why it has recycled barbecue grill lids for hubcaps, and goldfish in the water tank.
Also, did you realize that 4000 hp is 2,960 Kilowatts or nearly 3 megawatts? Consider the 15% efficiency of IC engines and 50% efficiency of a well designed electrolyser, that design would require 39,467 Kilowatts at full power, that means your dream car would need the the full power output of a very large nuclear plant to run your "onboard electrolyzer". Good luck finding batteries that can put out 39 megawatts.
There are other ways to get H2 from water. There are some metals that will react with water to produce H2 and a metal hydride, and high temperature steam will react with hydrocarbons or coal to produce H2 and CO2. Still not very practical, but at least it wouldn't require towing a huge power plant!
gorr 11:44AM (4/20/2009)
Why are you opposing any single drop of energy to everyones in a green energy internet site ? It's because you are paid for that.
Rick 3:51PM (4/22/2009)
Would make more sense if the fish were salt water fish.
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