Riversimple launches the car company of the future

Not only have they launched a prototype of their new urban hydrogen fuel call car, but Riversimple have essentially redefined how car companies of the future will operate.

I love Riversimple. I’ve been following them since last year when they launched their first prototype model developed with Morgan cars. This week they launched their new urban runabout vehicle at Somerset House in London. Perched beside the Thames, the new car silently rolled before the audience.

It’s body is made from carbon fibre, left charcoal-black and rough without the usual polished paint job. It’s bat-like doors swing upwards, leaving egg-shaped holes to access the interior of the car, which sports two tan-coloured leather bucket seats. Beneath the bonnet lies the hydrogen fuel cell; much smaller than I imagined, roughly about the size of a briefcase, the cell resembles a computer server with cooling fans and wires.

The hubs of the wheels protrude out a few inches like round black cake tins - these are the regenerative braking hubs I imagine. In order to supply the power for accelerating, the car uses “ultracapacitors”, which store large amounts of electric charge and, crucially, can release that charge nearly instantly to provide the power needed to accelerate from rest.

The new Riversimple car can go about 80km/hr (50mph) and has a range of 200miles.

Traditional car companies and the UK government project hydrogen fuel cell cars won’t be ready to come online until 2020. That’s because they’re locked in an outdated way of thinking.

Riversimple is planning to have the car available for production around 2013 and will release 10 prototypes in a UK city from next year.To get around the fact that there is currently no hydrogen infrastrucure in place, Riversimple has partnered with gas supply company BOC to install hydrogen stations for the cars in the city where the prototypes will be launched. In this way they will seed areas with the new urban cars, and as they become more popular, the recharging points can be expanded.

According to Hugo Spowers, “You can incrementally put in a template package of one re-fuellling point and 50 cars in different cities, and each city one by one can build an urban hydrogen infrastructure, and that incrementally builds a nationwide infrastructure.”

You can watch a short video about Riversimple here:
Riversimple

Blake, for We Are Futureproof

What’s the way forward for future car makers?

“We don’t want to re-invent the wheel, but in an era when car manufacturers have to totally re-think their engineering perhaps even wheels are in question.” - Futerra

I’ve been wondering over the past few months how best to write about the hefty financial bailout loans and various scrappage schemes that have been dished out to save car makers amidst the financial implosion of the auto industries across the US and Europe.

It’s hard to miss the news. The car manufacturers across the planet have been on the ropes for a while now. Things were bad before the ‘recession’ hit, but since late last year the poo really hit the proverbial fan, and all of them have been going down the tubes. Car sales in the UK are down 50% compared to the previous year.

For months the car unions and the car makers in the UK pushed repeatedly for some fiscal incentive package to help bring in much needed car sales, and for a long time the government resisted. But these are tough times, and by now all member states have caved in to the tremendous pressure from the car maker lobby groups.

As one example, our beloved (or behated) Jaguar Land Rover [JLR], owned by Indian-based Tata Motors, received a grant worth 27 million pounds to mass-produce a “green” crossover vehicle. And according to Candace Lombardi, the model would be a street version of their LRX concept car - a hybrid 2-liter turbo diesel crossover vehicle, combining features of a car and an SUV. The concept reportedly can get 50 mpg on average.

The £27 million grant specifically requires that the car be made at JLR’s plant in Merseyside, England, in order to protect jobs. But is this the future for UK manufacturing, and will it save JLR? Even if they do build it, what assurance is there that consumers will flock to this new crossover vehicle? More importantly, why commission a new car cobbled from old ideas at a time when we really need new ideas from the ground up?

“We believe that there will be some benefits for the environment as old cars are replaced by newer, more fuel efficient models.”
In January this year, Germany put a scrappage scheme in place, paying €2,500 towards the purchase of a new car in exchange for cars over 9 years old, in hopes of stimulating the struggling German car industry. Due to its overwhelming popularity, they renewed this scheme twice. Unfortunately most of the new car purchases went towards smaller, more efficient foreign models and not for homemade German models as they hoped. The UK followed suit in April, hoping to stimulate new car sales here. The UK government provides a £1,000 incentive, to be matched by either the car maker or dealer, for consumers to replace their 10 year old+ car or light van for a brand new one. The scheme runs until 2010, or when the money runs out.

Sadly there is no green incentive tied to the new scheme. According to DBERR (our UK government business / industry department): “There are no environmental criteria for the new vehicles the motorist chooses to buy. The scheme is primarily designed to boost the automotive industry and restore consumer confidence; it was not designed as a green measure. However, we believe that there will be some benefits for the environment as old cars are replaced by newer, more fuel efficient models.”

So why do we think this is a pointelss excercise and a waste of tax payers money?  And what is wrong with the major car companies? Quite frankly, the industry is dominated by big players who all very conservative. Their scale is way too large, they are weighed down by investments in old systems and all of them are struggling to survive financially.

At a recent talk by Riversimple, a new emerging car maker based in the UK, Patrick Andrews suggested that the cars of the future would be vastly different than what we have built to date. They have a new production car freshly designed from the ground up. Ultra capacitors allow for very fast acceleration, while the hydrogen allows a good range (200miles+). Without a heavy internal combustion engine the car is much lighter, and with a carbon composite body and environmentally friendly resins and epoxies the car can be recycled again and again.

So what are the 6 criteria for the cars of the future, according to Riversimple?

1. Lightweight: A Smart car weighs around 750kg; the new Riversimple car will weigh 350kg. It will be made of a lightweight composite material. Because it will be lighter it will be more fuel efficient as it doesn’t need to spend so much energy lugging it’s fat heavy weight around. More fuel efficient cars also cause less harm to pedestrians, create less wear on roads, and because of less wear on tyres there will be less heavy metals in air causing pollution.
   
2. Electric transmission: An internal combustion engine (ICE) is at the most 25% efficient. An efficient electric car can get 55% efficiency. Then there’s the Big Question: Battery or hydrogen? It’s not an either/or question. For short journeys - battery EVs are better suited. For long journeys, hydrogen is the answer but both have their own infrastructure problems.
3. Regenerative braking system: A Toyota Prius regenerates 10% energy through it’s braking system; the new Riversimple car will regenerate 50%.
4. Built to last: Cars generally last 5 years before they start breaking down. The new Riversimple car will be made to last over 10 years.
   
5. Designed for recycling: At the moment, many car parts are made to be downcycled. In the future cars will be designed to be truly recycled.
   
6. Open-source: In the current paradigm, car companies keep new design ideas secret and patent new ideas in order to dominate the market. In the future paradigm, small car makers will collaborate with a worldwide web of designers, engineers and manufacturers using a ‘creative commons’ style licensing agreement and peer to peer review.
   

Riversimple will be unveiling their new hydrogen-powered urban vehicle in June 2009 in London.

Blake, for We Are Futureproof