The Tata Iris Magic Ziva hydrogen fuel cell vehicle was unveiled in early February at the Auto Expo 2016 in Greater Noida, India (near New Dehli).
This 5-seater fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) is no racecar as its air-cooled fuel cell replaces a 1-cylinder diesel engine of the regular Magic Iris which has a top speed of around 34 mph.
According to Indian Auto Blog, “The small passenger carrier on display is powered by the Tata indigenous air-cooled hydrogen cell stack, which has a continuous power output of 3.5 kW, normal power output of 5 kW and a maximum power output of 9 kW at 2,100 rpm. The system is able to produce 42 Nm of flat torque till 2,100 rpm.
“At the front is a regular McPherson strut system and at the rear is a coil spring setup with semi-trailing arm. All wheels get 180 mm drum brakes and are of the 145R 12 inch specification. The Iris Magic Ziva measures 2,960 mm in length, 1,512 mm in width, and 1,900 mm in height. The vehicle has a wheelbase of 1,650 mm. Sitting on a ladder frame made with hat section long members and welded cross members, the Magic Ziva is a gearless and clutchless people carrier.”
Recently, India has overtaken China as one of the most egregious gross polluters in the world. The Tata Iris Magic Ziva by itself won’t change this. But every little bit helps and this shows that India is moving in the right direction by rolling out low and zero emission vehicles to help with the cause.
Resources
http://indianautosblog.com/2016/02/tata-magic-iris-ziva-auto-expo-2016-216061
The next step for this kind of vehicles is a cheaper hydrogen storage system. How about hydrogen cylinders at 100 atm which can be sold in regular gas stations like propane tanks all over the world.
Light metal hydrides, such as magnesium hydride, are promising solid-state hydrogen storage candidates for application in hydrogen fuel cell cars due to their merits in terms of safety and high gravimetric and volumetric hydrogen content in comparison with high pressure gaseous hydrogen storage. When heated at about 95 degree releases hydrogen.This means you can go to Walmart and purchase a sheet of Magnesium Hydrides and shove it at the back of your car and you are good to go until the sheet lose all the hydrogen.
Dump it in the recycle bin and get another one. Magnesium hydride has been attracted attentions for decades owing to its numerous advantages, such as high hydrogen content, non-toxicity to environment, good reversibility, and easy availability and low cost of magnesium
That’s an interesting idea and one that has been talked about some. In Taiwan there are hydrogen fuel cell scooters with swap-able tanks and this method seems to work for this vehicle type.