Australia’s First Hydrogen Powered Racing Car

by on 2010/01/25


Australia's first hydrogen powered racing car was made at RMIT University in collaboration with Fachhochschule Ingolstadt, University of Applied Sciences in Germany. www.formulahydrogen.com www.rmit.edu.au About the car •Chassis custom-designed tubular steel spaceframe, composite body panels •Suspension: A-arm pushrod, via bell cranks •Wheelbase: 2900mm •Track: 1500mm About the engine •Based on a Rotax motorcycle engine, converted to run on hydrogen •2-cylinder, in-line •4 valves per ...

{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }

xlr99 January 25, 2010 at 9:14 pm

Needs nuclear fission/fusion to generate large enough quantities of H2 cleanly. Low density is a problem and may require cryogenics. Good idea though, given its high specific energy.

SamMulie January 25, 2010 at 9:25 pm

basically the only way hydrogen is better is because it does not produce any C02, just water, one of the problems of hydrocarbons was that they produce water, We’re just turning the land into water people!

ftaffy1 January 25, 2010 at 10:12 pm

Was really cool to watch them build this car. When this was made RMIT were building 3 race cars:
SAE Petrol – Red one u see in videos
SAE EV car – Green one u see in videos
And the Hydrogen race car – this video.

If like cars it was some of the best experience u could get being surrounded by the 3 power sources.

Good luck with running the car!

josh6499 January 25, 2010 at 10:58 pm

How is a huge toxic lithium ion battery more environmentally friendly than a simple hydrogen tank? Hydrogen really is 0 emmisions as well, unless you consider water to be pollution. How do you make hydrogen? Electrolosis. Take water and seperate the H from the O with electricity. Your system takes electrons and puts them into a big toxic battery. Hydrogen is stored in a harmless metal tank. Infrastructure exists as gas tanks. Just convert them to use hydrogen. Bingo.

RockManAU January 25, 2010 at 11:32 pm

The all electric Tesla Roadster does 0-60mph in 3.9 seconds, it’s

available now, not in 20 years like this prototype and it really does have

zero emissions, unlike this energy wasting H bomb!

The amount of money it would take to build the infrastructure for H gas is

obscene when you consider we already have the infrastructure for the

electric car in place now!

Serious about safer, greener, faster transport?
Forget hydrogen & think Electric!

RockManAU January 25, 2010 at 11:59 pm

Don’t kid yourselves that this project has anything to do with renewable energy guys.
Hydrogen is NOT a viable renewable even if electrolysis is done with solar, wind etc. it is still way less efficient than all-electric cars like the Tesla Roadster because you need to collect energy to make H then you need more E to compress & freeze H to liquid and already you are way behind in the efficiency stakes.
Cost & safety of H infrastructure is enormous.
H cells use costly consumable resources.

ae86delgado January 26, 2010 at 12:23 am

cool car im also an automotive student and i believe in hydrogen as having much potential. wouldn’t it be cool if there was a national hydrogen power car race competition ! i would so pitch it to my school— lets make history people

letterpool January 26, 2010 at 1:18 am

What is the range on this small of a tank please =)

kcjenner1 January 26, 2010 at 1:59 am

Excellent comment ‘captcaveman4201′! If the big companies want to cash in on this (AND make it SAFE) they should approach it with a solution that I think should be analogus to JIT – (Just In Time). That was a production concept in manufacturing for supplies being delivered and processed with very little being warehoused. It would also make it safe from terrorist as being a target like the oil refineries we have.

rmitmedia January 26, 2010 at 2:40 am

Thanks for your opinions, it’s great there is discussion about this renewable source. We’ve forwarded your comments to the engineers on this project.

captcaveman4201 January 26, 2010 at 3:25 am

i think the dangers of big amounts of hydrogen is going to actually help us!! because you are only going to want small amounts. that means that the hydrogen production is going to be close to the individual that needs it.. What im tryin to say is NO HUGE FILL STATION/aka gas stations. Or huge 18 wheeler bombs flying around on the highways..Cuz lets face it the dangers of things blowing up are already out there all around us.

HHOhybridBuilder January 26, 2010 at 3:30 am

It is good. But how about the tank? Is it safe from explosion? I would be very scared to put a hydrogen tank in the trunk of my car. We all know that even a little static charge can ignite hydrogen.

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