openNews
01-20-2010, 05:58 PM
Cars are evil, right? But what if they ran on hydrogen, did 300 miles per gallon, were leased rather than owned, and were produced under an open source business model...
We have often been introduced to the car of tomorrow, but one company has now created a car with the future in mind. But it is about far more than just a car, it’s about a business model that is challenging the very architecture of the auto industry.
Riversimple (The open-source hydrogen car set to change the industry)’s network electric car is a hydrogen fuel cell powered car, with unique technologies that enable it to run on a 6kW fuel cell, with a fuel consumption equivalent to 300 miles per gallon and greenhouse gas emissions at 30g per km, well-to-wheel - less than a third of that from the most efficient petrol-engine cars currently available.
It also has the potential to be 10 times cleaner still if the hydrogen is produced from renewable energy.
Open source
But what is extraordinary about Riversimple is that their business model is trying to move away from the current auto industry practice that has left us with the inefficient, one-size-fits-all car.
The first departure from the conventional business plan is that the designs of the car will be released under an open source licence. This allows people to freely build on ideas and designs, speeding up innovation and enabling technologies to be quickly improved, meeting the needs of people rather than markets.
'There is such a yawning gap between the environmental performance of cars and what is sustainable, that I don’t believe a purely competitive world can ever get us there,' says Hugo Spowers, the brains behind Riversimple.
'[open source] really does produce this constant and very rapid drive toward absolute excellence, which I think is needed in the current circumstances. I have precious little faith in regulation ever pushing us in that direction.'
For reading the rest of the article in Ecologist, click here. (http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/401026/the_opensource_hydrogen_car_set_to_change_the_indu stry.html)
We have often been introduced to the car of tomorrow, but one company has now created a car with the future in mind. But it is about far more than just a car, it’s about a business model that is challenging the very architecture of the auto industry.
Riversimple (The open-source hydrogen car set to change the industry)’s network electric car is a hydrogen fuel cell powered car, with unique technologies that enable it to run on a 6kW fuel cell, with a fuel consumption equivalent to 300 miles per gallon and greenhouse gas emissions at 30g per km, well-to-wheel - less than a third of that from the most efficient petrol-engine cars currently available.
It also has the potential to be 10 times cleaner still if the hydrogen is produced from renewable energy.
Open source
But what is extraordinary about Riversimple is that their business model is trying to move away from the current auto industry practice that has left us with the inefficient, one-size-fits-all car.
The first departure from the conventional business plan is that the designs of the car will be released under an open source licence. This allows people to freely build on ideas and designs, speeding up innovation and enabling technologies to be quickly improved, meeting the needs of people rather than markets.
'There is such a yawning gap between the environmental performance of cars and what is sustainable, that I don’t believe a purely competitive world can ever get us there,' says Hugo Spowers, the brains behind Riversimple.
'[open source] really does produce this constant and very rapid drive toward absolute excellence, which I think is needed in the current circumstances. I have precious little faith in regulation ever pushing us in that direction.'
For reading the rest of the article in Ecologist, click here. (http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/401026/the_opensource_hydrogen_car_set_to_change_the_indu stry.html)