Riversimple Urban Car hydrogen car revealed
According to Autocar in the UK, a new hydrogen fuel cell-powered city car will be unveiled next week. The car has been designed over the last three years by
In fact, Riversimple – backed by Sebastian Piech, grandson of Ferdinand Porsche – will reportedly equip its first vehicle with a 6 kW fuel cell. That's positively tiny, especially when compared with other hydrogen-powered cars like the Honda Clarity, which uses a 100 kW fuel cell. One electric motor at each wheel will provide the car's motive force and a bank of ultracapacitors is used in lieu of a battery for energy storage.
The planned sales scheme is just as interesting as the car. Apparently, Riversimple plans to lease the cars for a period of 20 years (!), the price of which will include the cost of fuel. A total of ten prototypes are in the works and the company hopes to partner up with a city to launch a hydrogen infrastructure at the same time. Something you don't like about the project? Feel free to change it – this is an open source design that will be made available online.
[Source: Riversimple, Autocar]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
gorr 9:32AM (6/10/2009)
I knew hydrogen gas was almost free because many peoples said it can be made with little electricity.
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EVan 9:59AM (6/10/2009)
What?
meme 11:48AM (6/10/2009)
Hmm... I see a "-" button to rate a comment down, a "+" button to rate it up, and a "!" button to report it. Where's the "?" button to mark it as so off the wall it's funny?
gorr 2:12PM (6/10/2009)
I wanted you to know that each and every drop of gasoline you bouth in the past and actually was for nothing courtesy of the richs, cia, sanate, big oil, gm, toyota, tata, mercedes, honda, tesla, etc. Only taxmoney is worshipped by the ones that don't know customer service including their lungs and wallet. Stop any car expenditures until someone build a green car available for cash. It's not a political question, it's a consumer question. I writed enouph buying bids, now customers all over the world are rejecting autoblog green, zenn, volt, prius, volks, toyota, us army bush, barack, senators, shell, exxon, etc. Just me know that energy is free and unlimited from now until year 10 000 000 000 000 000 here or on another planet or spaceship or in paradise. Each and everyones have fail except me, d.dingel and s.mayer. I cannot socialize with anyone that don't say and live like the're unlimited energy. Try that, if someone try to tax your energy it's because he or she try to soak-up your energy and it's a criminal, some even live 100% with taxmoney or petrol. Remember the names and do business with real players that didn't show up until now. It's a question of work and patience, 1 mounth or a million year, don't despair, it will happen. Remember too that no actual player have invested money in me, like toyota, gm or chatters so put them on the black list forever, they will want to kill you one way or another, they are zombies. Zombies move slowly toward death and look all the same, they are looking for a personnality of their own by stealing yours like gm did when they build and destroyed the cheap battery car in the 1990's and sold the patents to criminal subsidized regulated experimentating political zombies.
Chris M 3:59PM (6/10/2009)
Gorr, you said "now customers all over the world are rejecting autoblog green" and "I cannot socialize with anyone that don't say and live like the're unlimited energy"
Well, considering that nobody else here believes in the Stanley Meyer/ David Dingle watercar frauds, nor do we believe in unlimited energy, I guess it is time for Gorr to leave us and never again socialize with the members of Autoblog Green.
So, goodby, Gorr. May you find peace and happiness elsewhere, there are other websites just for the Meyer/Dingle believers where you will fit right in. Google is your friend.
EVan 5:27PM (6/10/2009)
Wow!
That was awesome. That response might be the most brilliant exhibit of wacko writing I have ever seen. I'm actually going to print this out so I can read it when I'm bored at work.
I'm going to have to start replying "What?" to comments more often.
Thanks!
sinuhesieda 1:15AM (6/12/2009)
No! Making hydrogen ineffect and not at all cheap. EV is the way to do things (or EV+RE=serial hybrid). Hydrogen can be made from water or natural gas. Sorry but hydrogen is out of guestion.
jeffzekas 2:07AM (6/17/2009)
What an amazing bit of serendipity: the grandson of Ferdinand Porsche developing the next generation of vehicles! And with four motors, just as Porsche created an in-wheel, four motor vehicle! Brilliant!
James 10:40AM (6/10/2009)
Nice looking design. This is the size of car we need to be focusing on. Another group testing out open source vehicle design (in a different way) is the MIT solar car team:
http://www.design-impact.org/blog/2009/05/open-source-solar-car-development-at-mit/
@gorr: Producing hydrogen does have noticeable cost. Converting electrical energy to H2 (via electrolysis), then back to electricity (via fuel cell), has significant losses at each energy conversion. Li-ion batteries are a lower loss energy storage solution than H2.
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Chris M 4:08PM (6/10/2009)
The confusion comes about because H2 is such a bulky gas, literally lighter than air. A small current can easily produce a large volume of H2 gas, which gets some folks really excited when the see the electrolysis cell vigorously bubbling away.
But that huge volume represents very little energy. A full gallon of H2/O2 electrolysis gas, at atmospheric pressure and room temperature, is the energy equivalent of a droplet of gasoline.
jharlan 11:00AM (6/10/2009)
Gorr, I think you are operating under an illusion about the energy required to produce hydrogen, but seriously, the use of ultracapacitors in very interesting. I usually
just dismiss HFCVs as a scam, but this is innovative enough to call
for more scrutiny. They need to answer all the pertinent questions,
but cost of operation could be down there enough to make sense for
some very urban applications, and this has a cool factor.
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Chris M 3:41PM (6/10/2009)
Think? I know Gorr is operating under an illusion. He really believes in that water car scam that Stanley Meyers and David Dingle were pulling, and no amount of reality will ever change his mind
TX CHL Instructor 11:13AM (6/10/2009)
Might be reasonable NEV if you just omit the hydrogen (which would make it safer, lighter, more efficient, cheaper, and greener).
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Chris M 4:16PM (6/10/2009)
Use a LiIon battery similar to the Tesla design but 1/4 the size, and they could have a 16 Kwh battery with 80 Kw/60 hp power for faster acceleration and freeway capable speeds, 250 pound battery weight, and a $7k battery cost.
The result would be a much better commuter car at less than 1/3 the price.
polo 12:22PM (6/10/2009)
"20 year lease"...That should be the first hint that this thing is going to be insanely expensive. It looks like as small as a Smart ForTwo, and probably will cost as much as a cheap"ish" Ferrari. What city would invest the hundreds of millions necessary for a hydrogen infrastructure when they probably won't be able to sell a dozen of these things.
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Chris M 3:39PM (6/10/2009)
Well, by using a really tiny fuel cell, they can bring the cost down. Instead of a half million dollar fuel cell it would only cost about $30,000 for that 6 Kw / 8 hp fuel cell. Add in the carbon fiber H2 tank, batteries to supplement the fuel cell, motors, controllers etc. and you are looking at a tiny vehicle with anemic acceleration, limited range, limited top speed, very limited refueling options for that expensive H2 fuel, and a $70K cost! No wonder there is a 20 year lease! Makes the Model S or Volt look much more attractive, and it's no competition to the Smart EV.
So, my suggestion to these folks is that they forget H2 fuel and the fuel cell, and make a sprightly little LiIon powered commuter car instead. More power, lower cost, cheaper ''fuel", and 3x more efficient using renewable power than the H2 electrolysis option.
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Dave 11:42PM (6/10/2009)
Unless there are some major breakthroughs in fuel cell cost and hydrogen storage, It seems to me that ammonia would make more sense as an alternative fuel than H2:
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/861
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