Hydrogen car company Riversimple has revealed plans for two new concept vehicles, at the London Motor Show.
Founder, British entrepreneur-engineer Hugo Spowers unveiled the new concepts - a light goods vehicle and a four-seater car - both styled by renowned auto designer Chris Reitz.
Based on Riversimple’s hydrogen-powered FCEV (fuel cell electric vehicle) two-seater ‘Rasa’ the design forms part of company’s plans to bring affordable, cutting-edge technology to everyday road-users with a unique, all inclusive sale-of-service offering - ‘eliminating built-in obsolescence and flipping sustainability from a cost into a competitive advantage’.
The Welsh company launched the Rasa this spring, and started crowdfunding in April to match a €2m EU grant. It plans a 20-car beta test in 2016/17 with commercially available cars in 2018. The concept vehicles unveiled this week will be developed at a later stage, following initial roll out.
Spowers says he wants to kick-start a community-centric hydrogen infrastructure in the UK, developing a community of users around a single hydrogen refuelling station at a time. The aim is to build a distributed network of compact and efficient manufacturing plants over time, regenerating communities and creating jobs.
“Over a 20-year period, this approach would create thousands of new jobs and forge new revenue streams. Our circular business model aligns profitability with sustainability and has the potential to change the market dynamics in this resource-intensive industry,” said Spowers.
Riversimple’s says its plans echo a global shift – the UK government predicts 1.3m hydrogen cars will be on the road by 2030 and McKinsey Global Institute estimates that the clean tech product market will reach £1 trillion by 2020.
Riversimple describes the Rasa as the most efficient car in the world, designed for ordinary road-going and has no tailpipe emissions, just water. The car weighs only 580kg and is ‘incredibly aerodynamic’. Refuelling takes three minutes with a 300 mile range.