Riversimple Rasa Hydrogen Prototype
Launching a successful car company is
never easy, but Welsh firm Riversimple hopes to crack the industry with its
advanced compact car.
Revealed in prototype guise, the Rasa
two-seater that runs solely on hydrogen has been approved for testing
throughout Europe over a 12 month period, starting later this year .
The Riversimple Rasa is underpinned by a
carbon fiber composite chassis and thanks to the use of other lightweight
components, tips the scales at a mere 580 kg. Power comes courtesy of an 8.5 kW
fuel cell delivering the equivalent of 11 hp that drives each of the four
in-wheel motors. Additionally, the powertrain incorporates super-capacitors
that capture energy produced under braking and turn it into electricity for the
electric motors.
The production car is claimed to have a
range of up to 482 km when running on 1.5 kg of hydrogen. Good
enough, provided a sufficient infrastructure will be built.
The company itself is being supported by
a 2 million pound grant from the Welsh government. Twenty prototypes will be
created for testing in order to validate the vehicle's systems before a
production model hits the market in 2018.
