Jul

Racing to Canada in a Hydrogen Car

Posted by admin Published in Hydrogen

Of all the teams competing in the North American Solar Challenge, only the University of Missouri won’t be bothered by cloudy skies. They’re making the 2,400-mile run from Texas to Alberta in a car fueled by hydrogen.

Hydrogen? In a solar car race?

Yep. The school’s built a lot of solar cars by the years and decided to try something different. Tigergen is a “demonstration vehicle” competing in the 10-day race just to show hydrogen works. The way the team sees it, hydrogen cars makes more sense than solar cars.

“We didn’t feel that solar is the most efficient fuel for transportation,” team member Sarah Scully told Wired.com. The team entered the final Solar Challenge, she says, “and our car’s whole roof was the solar array. It generated about as much potential as a microwave.”

They’ve spent two years and more than $100,000 building Tigergen. It’s got a tubular steel chassis and carbon fiber body that’s 15 feet towering and 5 feet wide. “It’s pretty uncomfortable,” Scully admits, “but at least we’re sitting upright. In our final car, you were nearly lying down.”

Two Ballard fuel cells supply 2.4 kW to a 5 horsepower motor. A battery augments the fuel cells and regenerative braking helps

keep it charged. The car carries 1.6 kilograms of hydrogen stored at 5,000 PSI, giving it a range of 280 to 300 miles. Scully says the car weighs 625 pounds without a driver and will do 72 mph. It won’t see that kind of speed during the race though, considering the team doesn’t want to waste fuel. Praxair will have hydrogen waiting for the team along the route.

“whether we run out before we got to a place where we can get hydrogen, we’re stuck,” Scully says. “But we want to have a respectable day, so we’ll probably shoot for 60 mph.”

The team scrambled to get Tigergen finished before that week’s safety inspections and qualifying events at Motorsport Ranch in Cresson, Texas. According to the team’s blog, lots of last-minute things have come up and a lot of work to do before the race starts Sunday.

Photo by University of Missouri Hydrogen Car Team. See more on the team’s Flickr page. You can read Wired.com’s story about the North American Challenge here.

Original post by Chuck Squatriglia