The small British classic car sportscar manufacturer, Morgan, is to launch a new hydrogen-powered concept at the ‘Sexy Green Car’ show this week.
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The LIFECar is based on the hand-built Morgan Aero-8 roadster and was developed by Morgan and Hugo Spowers of RiverSimple, a specialist company investigating new ideas in environmentally sound transport.
Morgan and Spowers say it has an energy consumption equivalent to 150 miles per (imperial) gallon on petrol, can reach 0-60 miles per hour in just seven seconds, has a top speed of up to 85 miles per hour and has an average range of 250 miles (about 400 kilometres).
The car also uses a system to recover braking energy that is claimed to be much more efficient than normal regenerative braking systems. This energy is stored in a bank of ultra capacitors which can absorb and release energy more efficiently and quickly than batteries. As a result up to 50% of the energy used to brake can then be re-used to accelerate and the fuel cell can have a much lower power output without affecting acceleration.
Spowers said: “This has been a wonderful project to be involved with. The lessons we have learned from developing this car are proving extremely useful to RiverSimple in the development of our next project – an urban car which will revolutionise the efficiency and cleanliness of the way we travel in towns around the world and will take us a major step towards sustainable solutions which suit us – the traveller – and bring benefit to our atmosphere.”
Spowers coordinated the design concept and integration, and the involvement of Morgan, Cranfield University (in producing system simulation and powertain control), Linde (a specialist in industrial gases and engineering) for the refuelling system, QinetiQ (a defence and security technology company) for the manufacture of the fuel cell system, and the University of Oxford for the electric motors and power electronics.
