UK company building a hydrogen supercar that'll weigh next to nothing
- A UK company is making a hydrogen supercar
- It will weigh in at a mere 620kg – 1,000kg less than the electric Lotus Evija
- It’s an effort to use fewer resources and reduce pollution
Published on Aug 07, 2024 at 3:39 PM (UTC+4)
by Amelia Jean Hershman-Jones
Last updated on Aug 08, 2024 at 7:06 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Tom Wood
A UK company is in the process of building a hydrogen supercar that’ll weigh a mere 620kg (1,367lb).
The Welsh car maker is ‘pioneering the next generation of zero-emission vehicles’.
The problem they are attempting to solve is simple – heavy supercars use more resources and increase pollution.
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The problem with heavy cars
When cars are heavy they need to produce more power to counteract their heft.
The result is a double whammy of more resources being used on every car, embedded carbon in manufacturing, and more pollution being created – 78% of microplastics in the world’s oceans are from tires.
With battery electrification exacerbating the issue, scientists have warned that we are in danger of replacing the environmental crisis we are trying to remedy with another.
That’s as brands, including Alfa Romeo, end their internal combustion era.
This point is where a small Welsh car company, Riversimple, steps in.
Low-weight hydrogen supercar
Their first supercar, called Rasa, said in Riversimple’s own words, is ‘great to drive, safe to drive, fun to drive, light in every respect of the word, quick to refuel, and with a super strong framework of carbon fiber.’
It’s tiny, but not as small as the Peel P50.
Their next step is an attempt to rectify ‘the crisis of vehicle weight’ in partnership with postgraduate students at Coventry University’s Automotive and Transport Design course.
In short, no zero-emission car with a 644-kilometer (400-mile) range is available at much less than 2,000kg (4,409lb) – in fact, cars today are 25% heavier than they were seven years ago.
The UK-based circular and hydrogen car maker plans to remedy this with a car that falls precisely within that range, weighing only 620kg (1,367lb).
That’s thanks to its ultra-low, unsprung mass with carbon fiber chassis that’s 1,000kg (2,205lb) less than the battery electric Lotus Evija.
The hydrogen supercar will push the ‘limits of range, efficiency and lightweighting, using advanced carbon composite materials, inboard motors and brakes, lightweight fuel cell technology and supercapacitors’.
With a top speed of 161km/h (100mph), it will accelerate from 0-97km/h (0-60mph) in 3.5s and 0-161km/h (0-100mph) in 6.4s.
It also boasts a range of 660 kilometers (410 miles).
Alongside four inboard electric motors, its fuel cell is only 29kW, or 39bhp, thanks to the integration with supercaps – but its weight and aero-honing means it doesn’t need much to be fast.
What’s more, it can refill in five minutes.
It’s not the world’s first hydrogen-powered supercar, with Hyundai planning to launch its hydrogen-powered supercar in 2026.
“This car is an antidote to excess and power for the sake of it, and is an opportunity to redefine sports cars for the 21st century,” Riversimple founder and chief engineer, Hugo Spowers MBE, said.
“These supercars will be immense fun to drive and demonstrate exceptional vehicle dynamics, range, refuel time, light weight and, with Coventry University students’ help, style,” Spowers continued.
Build numbers will also be lightweight, with Riversimple producing between 10 and 20, with a price said to. be in the range of ‘rare collectible’.
All Supercar Blondie contributors undergo editorial review and fact-checking to ensure accuracy and authority in automotive journalism. After gaining her BA Hons in French and English at the University of Nottingham, Amelia embarked on a vocational diploma from the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ). This led to numerous opportunities, from interning at Vogue to being on the small team that launched Women’s Health magazine in the UK, which was named the PPA Consumer magazine of the year for three years running. As Health, Beauty and Fitness editor, Amelia personally received a Johnson & Johnson Award and was shortlisted for both PPA and BSME titles. Since then, Amelia has created content for numerous titles and brands, including the Telegraph, 111 Skin, Waitrose, Red magazine, Stylist, and Elle, as well as being Head of Content at Vitality and Editor in Chief at INLondon magazine. “My superpower is translating technical jargon about the mechanical workings of a supercar into a relatable story you’ll want to share with your friends after you’ve read it.” After joining the SB Media family as a senior journalist in September of 2023, Amelia’s role has evolved to see her heading up the SEO output of the editorial team. From researching the most ‘Google-able’ key terms to producing evergreen content - it’s been a time of hard work, growth, and success for the editorial team and the Supercar Blondie website. “I like to think of myself as a ‘method journalist’. In other words: I live and breathe whatever I am writing about. When writing about fitness, I trained as a personal trainer, and as a beauty editor, I completed an ‘expert’ in scent diploma with the Fragrance Foundation. “During my tenure at Supercar Blondie, however, I did something I never thought possible: I passed my driving test at the age of 36. One day I’d love to train as a mechanic to better understand what happens under the hood, too. “My sweet spot is providing readers with a ‘takeaway’ (read: something new they didn’t know before) after reading every one of my stories. While I don’t claim to be an expert in the automotive world, I know the experts and bodies in the field to rely on to provide our readers with an informative and thought-provoking story every time they visit the site.”
