Hypercars: Transportation for the 21st Century

Ever since humankind has been thinking, we have been inventing new ways to get things done. From the first use of sticks and rocks as tools, all the way to the invention of the personal computer, the human race has proven to be incredibly resourceful. Unfortunately, with the Industrial Revolution of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, a problem emerged with the quickening of human technological development. The burning of more fossil fuels, resulting from the need for more fuel for power, started to pump more carbon dioxide and other harmful pollutants into the atmosphere. Later on in the 20^th century, scientists discovered that these pollutants were creating a hole in the ozone layer, the protective layer of the atmosphere that shields the Earth from the Sun's harmful UV rays. Ever since this was realized, many scientists, conservationists, and other environmental idealists have been trying to counteract the amount of pollution put out by the use of resources by humans. The biggest problem is finding a solution that is adaptable to the current culture, and that is also economically possible. In terms of air pollution, one of the biggest issues is transportation, most significantly the major contribution that internal combustion vehicles make to the amount of pollutants in the air. There have been many suggestions to correct the problem of internal combustion vehicle pollution. One of the most recent (and most popular) ideas to keep cars on the roads, without sacrificing power or speed, has been the concept of the hypercar, a super-efficient automobile. These cars are considered to be the future of the automobile, and could be on the road within five years. Extensive research has been done with the technology for these cars, and the concept of hydrogen power has been accepted as the best form of fueling the hypercar.

The hypercar is considered to be the brainchild of American energy guru Amory Lovins, the CEO and co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, an "entrepreneurial nonprofit organization that fosters the efficient and restorative use of resources to make the world secure, just, prosperous, and life-sustaining" (http://www.rmi.org/). Lovins' hypercar seems to be the most likely alternative to petrol-burning vehicles. His concept is of a super-light, hydrogen fuel cell powered car, which is quickly becoming a reality, as each major car company struggles to produce their prototype first. Perhaps the closest prototype to completion belongs to Hypercar Inc. (launched by and closely affiliated with Lovins and the Rocky Mountain Institute). It is called the Revolution, and as described by Michael McCabe of the San Francisco Chronicle in 2002: "It looks like something out of a sci-fi flick via Pixar, so cool looking that the urge to hop inside and take a spin down Highway 101 is nearly irresistible.Except this car, called the Revolution, is just a pretty shell. Peek under the thermo-plastic body and, nothing. Peer through the dark windows, and there is a beautifully designed cover over where the dashboard, steering wheel and seats should be. . . . But the revolution will have to wait. Its creators at Hypercar Inc., a high-technology Colorado development company, say the car, which has been on display in Palo Alto for several weeks, won't be ready for about four or five years (McCabe, "Hydrogen driven Revolution -- not your father's SUV"; The San Francisco Chronicle 2/25/02, B3)."

Even now, three years after the unveiling of the Revolution, engineers and scientists from every major car company, as well as private companies like Hypercar Inc., race to get their car on the market first. The first generation of hypercars, super-efficient yet still gasoline-powered, have been released, mainly only for car shows and in Europe, but they are very expensive. GM has released the EV₁, an ultra-light car with superior aerodynamics, and Volkswagen has released the L₁, named for its fuel economy of 100 kilometers per liter, an astounding 239 miles per gallon (http://www.hypercar.com/).

One issue with the vehicles of today is the loss of energy. Generally, in one of today's vehicles, only 10-15% of the energy produced from the combustion of gasoline actually makes it to the wheels and moves the vehicle. Most of the other energy is let off as heat, and because of the heavy engine that is required to cool the heat let off, the vehicle is even less efficient. One of the major design changes in the Revolution was to place 4 separate motors at each wheel. This way, less of the energy created by the motors is lost to heat. This allows for a much more efficient use of the vehicle's power, while also lessening the risk of overheating the engine, a major problem for the automobiles of today. (Lovins and Cramer, "Hypercars, hydrogen, and the automotive transition" 50) In essence, the design for this version of the hypercar has reinvented the automobile engine, adding power and fuel efficiency, while decreasing noise and heat.
Another one of the major components of the basic design for the hypercar is the super-light carbon fiber shell, which replaces the steel shell that weighs today's vehicles down. The same material that is used in making commercial airplanes, carbon fiber is expensive, but incredibly strong. "The [Revolution] is surprisingly big, about the size of a Lexus RX 300 SUV. But the complete car will weigh only half what the Lexus weighs" (McCabe B3). This contributes majorly to the prediction that the prototype Revolution will achieve 90-200 miles per gallon of fuel, compared to the same-sized RX 300, which gets between 13 and 17 miles per gallon of gasoline.

The hypercar is powered by hydrogen fuel cells, which, when reacted with oxygen, forms pure water vapor, instead of carbon dioxide, which is formed when gasoline is combusted for energy (such as in an internal combustion engine). This technology, once perfected, has the potential to eliminate the majority of emission pollution from automobiles. The products that are emitted from burning octane (gasoline) are water vapor and carbon dioxide. If the fuel were changed from octane, a hydrocarbon (a molecule that contains hydrogen and carbon, the burning of which produces carbon dioxide), to pure hydrogen, the carbon is eliminated from the reaction, thus the resulting product of only water vapor.

Hydrogen (H₂) does not explode as readily as natural gas or gasoline, and is thus much safer. In fact, when hydrogen combusts, it is much more likely to burn harmlessly, the flame barely hot enough to burn human skin. Lovins, in an essay for the Rocky Mountain Institute called "Twenty Hydrogen Myths," separates fact from fiction when dealing with hydrogen as a fuel, focusing especially on the popular belief that the Hindenburg disaster was caused by hydrogen fuel. "Contrary to a popular misunderstanding, these safety attributes actually helped save 62 lives in the 1937 Hindenburg disaster. An investigation by NASA scientist Dr. Addison Bain found that the disaster would have been essentially unchanged even if the dirigible were lifted not by hydrogen but by nonflammable helium, and that probably nobody aboard was killed by a hydrogen fire. (There was no explosion.) The 35% who died were killed by jumping out, or by the burning diesel oil, canopy, and debris (the cloth canopy was coated with what nowadays would be called rocket fuel). The other 65% survived, riding the flaming dirigible to earth as the clear hydrogen flames swirled harmlessly above them (Lovins, "Twenty Hydrogen Myths" 10)."

The myth that hydrogen is more explosive than natural gas stems from the misconception that the hydrogen whose reactions power H-bombs is the same hydrogen that can be used as a fuel. These are entirely different isotopes, which are not interchangeable. "A hydrogen bomb can't be made with ordinary hydrogen, nor can the conditions that trigger nuclear fusion in a hydrogen bomb occur in a hydrogen accident; they're achieved, with difficulty, only by using an atomic bomb"(Lovins, "Twenty Hydrogen Myths" 10). A hydrogen production industry already exists, and the existing factories could easily and cheaply be converted into a mass fuel cell production industry. This revolutionary technology has the potential of changing the way energy is produced and used, and could mark the beginning of a massive movement towards a global environmental cleanup.

Therefore, it would seem the hypercar may well be the next generation, the future of our everyday vehicles. In these days of record-high gasoline prices, perhaps it is time to end reliance on petroleum in terms of transportation. The technology is available - expensive, yes, but available - and could become much cheaper and more readily available to manufacturers. So, even as engineers at Hypercar Inc. race to get the Revolution on the road, many others are developing their own solution to the growing energy problem (such as the gasoline-electric hybrid Toyota Prius, one of today's biggest-selling cars). Since the idea of these futuristic vehicles by Amory Lovins, there has been quite a bit of research done with the hypercar. From the building of the aerodynamic Revolution to the use of carbon fibers for the body, the hypercar could end up as the future of transportation. The revolutionary idea of hydrogen fuel cells for the power drive - which emit nothing but water vapor, and which burns almost harmlessly - could prove to be a viable alternative to human dependence on oil. With this new technology, the human race could be finally moving closer to safer, more efficient, and certainly more environmentally friendly transportation.

Works Cited:
Lovins, A.B. and Cramer, D.R. (2004) "Hypercars, hydrogen, and the automotive transition" Int. J. Vehicle Design, Vol. 35, Nos. 1/2, pp. 50-85.
Lovins, Amory. "Twenty Hydrogen Myths" http://www.rmi.org/images/other/Energy/E03-05_20HydrogenMyths.pdf
McCabe, Michael. "Hydrogen driven Revolution -- not your father's SUV" San Francisco: San Francisco Chronicle, 2002.
http://www.rmi.org
http://www.hypercar.com