Riversimple, the Wales-based manufacturer of hydrogen electric cars, has been awarded government funding of £1.25m, to support the production of a test fleet of 20 vehicles.
The grant, from the government’s Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) will support the production of 17 of Riversimple’s revolutionary, ultra-efficient car, the Rasa, which will complement 3 other Rasa models. The fleet will be user-tested in a 12-month trial in and around Abergavenny, in Monmouthshire.
The trial, involving 200 testers – including households, businesses, car clubs and councils, will provide data and user insight that will be used to refine the design and the customer proposition further, ahead of volume production.
Founder and Chief Engineer of Riversimple, Hugo Spowers said: “This funding award will support us to complete our first production run of the Riversimple Rasa. In partnership with Monmouthshire County Council these cars will form part of the pioneering Clean Mobility Trial which will see 12 months of user testing allowing us to improve our customer offer and to promote localised refuelling infrastructure.”
“We are also hopeful that, following the trial, other local authorities will engage with us to explore similar deployments of Riversimple vehicles in their local areas”
The Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) said: “The innovative technology these vehicles use has long range (300+ miles) and fast refuelling (3-5 minutes) capability, and will support the Industrial Strategy Future of Mobility Grand Challenge to place the UK at the forefront of the design and manufacturing of zero emission vehicles.”
The car is offered on an all-inclusive, service basis, with the cost of road tax, insurance and fuel included, making sustainable, high-tech automotive design affordable to the end user.
The company plans to boost hydrogen infrastructure in the UK by developing communities of users around each filling station. Over the next 20 years, Riversimple plans to build a distributed network of compact and efficient manufacturing plants that will regenerate communities and create jobs.
The Riversimple team includes ex-F1 and aerospace engineers and has spent over 18 years developing the technology and the business model.
The company is currently preparing for its third and final crowdfunding campaign, previous campaigns have raised £2 million. Please visit our pre-registration page at Seedrs to be kept informed.
Riversimple is a consortium member of SWARM (Demonstration of Small 4-wheel fuel cell passenger vehicle Applications in Regional and Municipal transport). SWARM has received FCH-JU (Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking) research funding from the European Union.
The Rasa has been designed to be one of the most efficient cars in the world at 40gCO2/km well-towheel, it boasts four in wheel motors, has a range of 300 miles per 1.5kg tank of hydrogen. It has an equivalent of 250 mpg and can reach its top speed of 60mph in 9.7 seconds.
Read the most up to date Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Industry news at FuelCellsWorks
