WELSH HYDROGEN CAR

The tiny Welsh car that runs on hydrogen and emits only water

By Oli Bloor, Ed Scott-Clarke, and Katy Scott, CNN

Updated 7:55 AM ET, Thu November 16, 2017

(CNN)Riversimple, a small independent car manufacturer in rural Wales, is taking a bet that hydrogen vehicles will play a key part in the future of transport.

Former auto engineer Hugo Spowers swore off working with petrol engines 15 years ago when he began toying with the idea of building hydrogen-powered vehicles.

Spowers was determined to devise a fundamentally new solution to address the problems associated with carbon emissions.

“We’ve got to move beyond trying to make combustion engines a little bit less bad,” he tells CNN. “Because after all, being a little bit less unsustainable is still not sustainable.”

The result is a hand-built, aerodynamic car called Rasa that weighs just 580 kilograms — 40 kilograms more than just the battery of a Tesla Model S.

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Its name comes from the Latin “tabula rasa,” which means “clean slate,” a nod to the clean hydrogen technology and how Spowers and his team designed a radically different type of car from scratch.

The Rasa chassis is made from lightweight carbon fiber monocoque.

The odd-looking two-seater with butterfly doors takes three minutes to refuel, has a 500 kilometer range, a top speed of 96km/hour, and the only tail pipe emission is water.

By comparison, a battery electric vehicle takes much longer to recharge and can run flat after 250 kilometers for cars like the Nissan Leaf or 550 kilometers for the latest Tesla Model S.

The Rasa has a motor in each of its four wheels, powered by hydrogen running through a fuel cell. When the hydrogen combines with oxygen it produces electricity to power the motors, as well as water as a byproduct.

The car also has its own “super capacitors” to capture kinetic energy from braking as electricity, and convert it into power to assist with acceleration.

The Rasa's hydrogen fuel cell produces 8.5 kW of electrical power.

The Rasa’s hydrogen fuel cell produces 8.5 kW of electrical power.

Creating a market

Early next year Riversimple will trial 20 Rasa vehicles in Monmouthshire, a county in south east Wales. The idea is to have a single hydrogen filling station in Abergavenny, a central town in the area.

“We’re trying to create a movement to bring this to market at a local level,” says Spowers. “You can create a market for a car with just a single filling station.”

The Rasa is designed to be used as a runabout within a 40-kilometer radius, and Spowers estimates the average driver would typically re-fuel once a week.

However, Riversimple doesn’t intend to sell its cars. Instead, it is promoting a “sale of service” model where, much like a cell phone contract, the customer pays a monthly fee for the car, maintenance, insurance and fuel, at roughly the same cost of ownership as a Volkswagen Golf.

But don’t expect to see hydrogen cars popping up all over the place just yet.

The biggest barriers for hydrogen cars include a lack of infrastructure and an enthusiasm for battery electric vehicles, according to automotive journalist and clean-tech enthusiast Richard Sutton.

“Until the refueling infrastructure exists for hydrogen, then it will always be a bit part player compared to battery electric,” says Sutton. “But that’s set to change.”

These AIRPod One prototypes are powered by compressed air, driven by joystick, and can be refilled like a gasoline car at compressed air stations. Plans for the AIRPod, created by Guy Negre (pictured) head of MDI, have been in the works for two decades, and it is expected to be on the market later this year.