Hydrogen car Riversimple Rasa

Hydrogen car Riversimple Rasa - WE STARTED WITH A HYDROGEN FUEL CELL
We started with a hydrogen fuel cell, a green design manifesto, and a blank sheet of paper. Every aspect of Rasa has been created and researched for simplicity, efficiency, lightness, strength, affordability, safety and sustainability. And the name Rasa is a tribute to this blank sheet of paper - Tabula Rasa in Latin means "blank sheet".

This first car is a two-seater "networked electric" hydrogen fuel cell car. The engineering prototype hit over 60 mph and drove neatly through traffic jams in London as well as skidded on Powys' country roads.

The chassis is a carbon fiber monocoque made of very lightweight yet extremely rigid carbon fiber composites. The monocoque chassis weighs less than 40 kg.

DESIGNED FROM ZERO

LIGHTNESS IS THE KEY
Our car is very light - the engineering prototype weighs 580 kg. It embodies various key features:

- Four electric motors, one for each wheel
- Motors as brakes - recovering more than 50% kinetic energy when braking
- Supercapacitors to store this energy and provide most of the power for acceleration
- Low power hydrogen fuel cell (8.5 kW)
- Lightweight composite body

It is a synthesis of all these technologies that provides groundbreaking efficiency and range, many times better than the use of fuel cells in conventional heavy vehicles. A production prototype should run around 250 miles per gallon (equivalent) with a 300-mile range. Emissions are zero in the tailpipe and c.40gCO 2 / km Wealthy wheels - even if the hydrogen comes from natural gas.

HOW DOES IT WORK?
Hydrogen passes through a proton exchange membrane in a fuel cell, where it combines with oxygen to form water and electricity. Electricity is then fed to the motors of each wheel. These motors are small, lightweight and give the car four-wheel drive.

When the car brakes, kinetic energy, which is usually lost as heat, is captured as electricity. When the car slows down, this electricity floods the supercapacitor battery at the front of the car. Unlike a battery, these supercapacitors can take a large charge very quickly, but they do not store much energy. The energy they take is sent back to the motors and provides the energy for acceleration.

The reason we call this a networked electric vehicle is because energy is transmitted over the network around the vehicle. It can flow in any direction along any path except the return path to the fuel cell.

Our innovative network design means we only need a fuel cell large enough to provide cruising speed, not acceleration. We get back more than 50% of the braking energy that is used for acceleration. This is the culmination of 15 years of development, and it's wonderful.