Lease a hydrogen fuel cell car for $315/month?

[SVOboy]

Here’s a new one on me; the Riversimple open source hydrogen fuel cell car.Not too many details are available yet: it has a 1kg tank of hydrogen and a whopping 6kW (8HP) fuel cell that give it a range of 240 miles, and a top speed of 50mph.* It weighs just 350kg (~771 pounds), owing [...]Related posts:

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[dcb]

Forgive me, but isn't hydrogen a stupid storage mechanism? At least in terms of efficiency?

[NeilBlanchard]

Hi,

It depends on what you mean by stupid -- it is not the most efficient (due to the fuel cell's losses, and to the losses in making the hydrogen) or the easiest. But it is pretty clean: you split water to get hydrogen, and then you get water back after using the hydrogen.

I agree that there may be advantages with using batteries, and I hope that someone uses the basic plans of this car to make a version with batteries. It would be heavier, but it might be much more practical, since you can charge up batteries just about anywhere; while hydrogen is pretty hard to come by, let alone from a "green" source.

I really like the basics of this car: light weight, 4 wheel electric drive, with a lot of regenerative braking, in what seems to be a pretty aerodynamic package.