The Riversimple Urban Car is a conceptual

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

hydrogen Hydrogen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol H and atomic number 1. It is the lightest and abundance of the chemical elements, most abundant chemical element in the universe, constituting about 75% of all baryon, normal matter ...

fuel cell vehicle A fuel cell vehicle (FCV) or fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) is an electric vehicle that uses a fuel cell, sometimes in combination with a small battery or supercapacitor, to power its onboard electric motor. Fuel cells in vehicles generate el ...

that was proposed by

Hugo Spowers Hugo Ronald Alan Spowers (born 1960) is a British entrepreneur-engineer who co-ordinated the development of the Morgan LIFEcar sports car project that was launched at the Geneva Motor Show in March 2008, and the Riversimple Urban Car. Spower ...

' company,

Riversimple Riversimple is a United Kingdom-based car manufacturer of hydrogen-powered fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs). It is based in Llandrindod Wells, a town in Wales, where there is a research & development centre and the company's offices. Riversim ...

, in 2009. Their latest model, the Rasa, was unveiled on 17 February 2016. A working prototype vehicle was unveiled at the

Somerset House Somerset House is a large neoclassical architecture, neoclassical building complex situated on the south side of the Strand, London, Strand in central London, overlooking the River Thames, just east of Waterloo Bridge. The Georgian era quadran ...

in London on 16 June 2009, and , with production initially planned to begin by 2013. The plan has been subsequently superseded with the intention to develop a production vehicle of a similar format but with a new design in 2018–19.

Design

The Riversimple Urban Car was designed and developed in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

by teams at

Cranfield Cranfield is a village and civil parish in the west of Bedfordshire, England, situated between Bedford and Milton Keynes. It had a population of 4,909 in 2001. increasing to 5,369 at the 2011 census. The parish is in Central Bedfordshire uni ...

and

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

Universities. It was backed by Sebastian Piech, the great-grandson of

Ferdinand Porsche Ferdinand Porsche (3 September 1875 – 30 January 1951) was a German automotive engineering, automotive engineer and founder of the Porsche, Porsche AG. He is best known for creating the first Petrol engine, gasoline–Electric motor, el ...

. The Urban Car is a two-passenger vehicle about the size of a

Smart ''SMart'' was a British CBBC television programme based on art, which began in 1994 and ended in 2009. The programme was recorded at BBC Television Centre in London. Previously it had been recorded in Studio A at Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingha ...

. It weighs , and the prototype was constructed of a

Carbon fiber Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers ( Commonwealth English), carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic (CFRP, CRP, CFRTP), also known as carbon fiber, carbon comp ...

composite material A composite or composite material (also composition material) is a material which is produced from two or more constituent materials. These constituent materials have notably dissimilar chemical or physical properties and are merged to create a ...

body. The car can reach speeds of and travel for on of

before refueling. 2010 calculations showed it could achieve the equivalent of up to 300 mpg in hydrogen, and a

life cycle assessment Life cycle assessment (LCA), also known as life cycle analysis, is a methodology for assessing the impacts associated with all the stages of the life cycle of a commercial product, process, or service. For instance, in the case of a manufact ...

carbon emissions Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from human activities intensify the greenhouse effect. This contributes to climate change. Carbon dioxide (), from burning fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum, oil, and natural gas, is the main cause of climate chan ...

of less than 30g CO₂/km.

Operation

The Urban Car is powered by a

fuel cell A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts the chemical energy of a fuel (often hydrogen fuel, hydrogen) and an oxidizing agent (often oxygen) into electricity through a pair of redox reactions. Fuel cells are different from most bat ...

from Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies that converts hydrogen into electricity. This power supply functions like a

battery Battery or batterie most often refers to: * Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power * Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact Battery may also refer to: Energy source * Battery indicator, a device whic ...

, uses no moving parts, and emits only pure water. There are two novel principles involved with this project: decoupling of acceleration from cruising, and mass decompounding. '' Decoupling acceleration and cruise'' means that the fuel cell will only need to be large enough to supply the power needed for maintaining a constant speed, which is about 20% of the power needed for acceleration. Most of the car's braking is done by

electric motor An electric motor is a machine that converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. Most electric motors operate through the interaction between the motor's magnetic field and electric current in a electromagnetic coil, wire winding to gene ...

s on each wheel. These motors capture the energy of the car in motion, and store it as electricity in a bank of

electric double-layer capacitor alt=Supercapacitor, upright=1.5, Schematic illustration of a supercapacitor upright=1.5, A diagram that shows a hierarchical classification of supercapacitors and capacitors of related types A supercapacitor (SC), also called an ultracapacitor, ...

s (ultra-capacitors). This electricity is used to provide 75% of the power used in acceleration. Because of this, the Urban Car can be powered by a 6 kW fuel cell, which is significantly smaller than the

Honda FCX Clarity The Honda Clarity is a nameplate used by Honda on alternative fuel vehicles. It was initially used only on hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicles such as the 2008 Honda FCX Clarity, but in 2017 the nameplate was expanded to include the battery-elec ...

's 100 kW fuel cell. This requires less hydrogen to be stored on board, and results in an overall lighter vehicle. ''Mass decompounding'' involves designing the car as a complete system, as opposed to redesigning a car originally conceived as being powered by an

internal combustion engine An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal comb ...

into a fuel cell vehicle. The combination of a small fuel cell, along with elimination of the unnecessary

gearbox A transmission (also called a gearbox) is a mechanical device invented by Louis Renault (who founded Renault) which uses a gear set—two or more gears working together—to change the speed, direction of rotation, or torque multiplication/r ...

drive shaft A drive shaft, driveshaft, driving shaft, tailshaft (Australian English), propeller shaft (prop shaft), or Cardan shaft (after Girolamo Cardano) is a component for transmitting mechanical power (physics), power, torque, and rotation, usually ...

s, power-assist systems, and associated components, results in a very lightweight vehicle.

Retail and licensing

, Riversimple planned to

lease A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...

the cars over 15 years instead of selling them, with fueling included in the leasing cost. This was intended to increase the life of the vehicles, and reduce materials usage. The cost of the lease was expected to be about £200 (US$330) per month. , the open source design for the Riversimple Urban Car was planned to be stored on the 40 Fires

wiki A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or l ...

site online. The wiki project is called ''The Hyrban''. At that time, Riversimple planned to lease the design to any small manufacturer for free, modify it as desired, and build their own version of the vehicle. The CAD models for the Riversimple Hyrban technology demonstrator have been released under a Creative Commons license, attribution 3.0. "The 40 Fires Foundation takes an open source approach to developing energy-efficient technology"

References

External links

* * * {{youTube, IHSOgw3Ecw0, Urban Car's debut Hydrogen cars Fuel cell vehicles Concept cars Open hardware vehicles

Design

Operation

Retail and licensing

See also

References

External links