Date:13 Mar 2012
Time:18:30 - 21:00
Contact:John Parsons: JohnP@beama.org.uk
Location:Hugh Aston Building at De Montfort University
Description:
Hugo Spowers Hugo, a partner in Riversimple LLP and former motorsport engineer, will give the Energy Institute lecture "Hydrogen fuel cells or batteries; the wrong question" on 13 March.
Hugo Spowers realised that the dominant metric of concern for vehicles in the future will be energy efficiency, dictating a more complex mix of fuels and powertrains than we have had in the past.
He concluded that fuel cell vehicles can be much more efficient than anything else for longer range applications and this is where Riversimple's efforts are now focused. Success depends on the same skills as in motorsport; systems integration rather than basic science. He concluded that a step change in technology was both essential and possible and, furthermore, that the principal barriers were not technical but to do with people, politics and business so, during an MBA at Cranfield, he studied the commercial feasibility of bringing hydrogen cars to market.
The incumbent industry was shaped by the 20th century and is not well suited to addressing the constraints of the 21st. Popular wisdom dictates that one change at a time is a prudent strategy but Hugo argues that when pursuing step changes such as the one we face, incremental change creates artificial technical and commercial barriers. In contrast, redesigning both the fundamental architecture of cars and the business model for providing mobility reduces barriers and risks, both technical and commercial.
This led to the LIFECar research project with Morgan cars, to prove the technical concept. He founded Riversimple with Sebastian Piech of the Porsche family and built a 2 seat technology demonstrator. Chris Reitz, formerly Head of Design at Alfa Romeo, has joined the team and is styling the new production vehicle that they are developing for local use from their current technology demonstrator to be piloted in Leicester, Herefordshire and Shropshire.
Directions to De Montfort can be found here.