The New Green Car
The Riversimple Urban Car will have a far smaller fuel cell than in current industry prototypes and thus needs less hydrogen to be stored on board and in fuelling stations.
Another great thing about this car is that it is actually very small weighing at just a minute 350Kg and is no bigger than the smart car. It can reach 50mph and travel in excess of 200 miles, consuming the equivalent petrol energy of 300mpg in hydrogen.
Power comes from a 6kw fuel cell, which is tiny compared to the 100kw system powering the Honda Clarity. Something that is very high in importance when it comes to this car is keeping the weight down which is why it is able to be quite speedy.
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.
The cars themselves will also be leased over 20 years, with fuelling included in the leasing cost, and the materials will be recycled at the end of each car’s lifespan.
The head of Riversimple has always been a strong believer in pushing technology forward and he realises that this is going to be big. The sale of cars still rewards the maximisation of resource use – whereas we now accept that we must minimize resource use.”
“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. Audi Carsare just one of the brands that needs to be looked into.
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