Hydrogen-Powered Urban Concept Car Design Unveiled

A new hydrogen-powered concept car has been unveiled in London that aims to beat many of the challenges currently associated with wide-scale hydrogen-powered car production.  

Called the RUC (Riversimple Urban Car), the design’s power comes from a fuel cell that blends hydrogen and oxygen, creating energy. 

Hydrogen Car Technology

Hydrogen car technology offers the potential to reduce emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, so long as the hydrogen originates from a renewable energy source. 

However, a number of problems have been identified with these types of cars, primarily:

• The fact that the fuel cells feature platinum, which is costly
• The complications involved with giving the fuel cells enough power for a standard-sized car
• The issue of large-scale hydrogen storage, which is impractical

While acknowledging these issues, Hugo Spowers, who established Riversimple, stresses that they are ones established by the largest car manufacturers and that, with a design that is “light and efficient enough”, these “hurdles” can be “lowered”.

Environmentally Friendly Car

According to Riversimple, the fact that they have created the Urban Car to be an environmentally friendly car from the outset gives them an edge over more established automobile makers, in that they can accelerate its commercialisation.  To put this into context, while Honda’s FCX Clarity design is scheduled to be on sale from 2018 onwards, the Riversimple Urban Car will already have been in mass production for five years at this point, according to current predictions.

The RUC is approximately Smart car-sized, with a 772 pound weight and a low-cost six KW (Kilowatt) fuel cell – 6/100ths the size of that employed by the Honda FCX.  It has a 300 kilometre range off a one kilogram hydrogen load, and can travel at speeds of up to 50 mph. 

Four electric motors power this car, which are located in the wheels.  On this basis, the energy loss associated with traditional braking systems is not an issue here, since the RUC retains up to half of it.  This performance puts it ahead of the majority of electric vehicles, whose electric motors don’t connect up to all the wheels in this way.

The RUC has no battery.  Rather, it derives its power from an array of ultracapacitors, whose energy input/output process takes place more quickly that a battery could achieve.

Internal design technologies aside, the RUC’s basic design will be what’s known as ‘open source’.  In other words, it can be used by any other individual or organisation, on the basis that they publish details of any alterations made to it.

Finally, the RUC will not be available to actually buy, but will be available to consumers on a lease basis.  "That means we are driven to encourage people to keep them for as long as possible rather than replacing their vehicle quickly, as is usual in the car business”, Spowers explained.

The initial RUC lease is slated to take place in two years time, at a forecast cost of approximately £200 PCM.

Riversimple Urban Car image provided by and copyright of Riversimple