Riversimple Hyrban

The Riversimple Hyrban is anything but a simple, fleeting thought in one’s head in the middle of the night. The idea behind the Riversimple Hyrbran came from a man named Hugo Spowers. He was a motor sports engineer and race driver from the United Kingdom.

Spowers decided to leave racing when he had many concerns about the environment and how it was impacted by racecar driving.

There is nothing too fancy about the 2-seat Riversimple Hyrban as it was designed using some very simple elements, which is also the beauty of this hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicle. The Riversimple Hybran is a lightweight hydrogen FCV and a body made from carbon composites.

The design of this car is an open design source, which is an idea that may revolutionize the car industry. Open Source has already revolutionized software being used on the Internet, such as Linux, OsCommerce, Apache, Joomla, Mozilla Firefox, GNU Project and WordPress blogging software.

This open source concept has offered inspiration to engineers and even those who like to tinker around with cars to help create the Riversimple Hyrban offering their own designs to be integrated into parts of the car. So, in other words, instead of an automobile being design in a proprietary, closed door environment of the big automakers, this is just the opposite and there is a degree of transparency that is unheard of in the automotive industry.

That open source caretaker is 40fires.org, which is a not for profit company that was created by Riversimple LLC. They are hosting the Hyrban project as well as some other innovative ideas.

Thes Hyrban cars will not be for sale but for lease. The car will benefit both the environment and the car driver. The plans are for a limited production and rollout of the Riversimple Hyrban as only 5,000 to 10,000 are now planned to be manufactured. More and more consumers are becoming excited about these Riversimple Hyrban cars, so this number may change depending upon this demand.

They will save on operating costs and they will save on power too. One of the exciting ideas behind this car is that it is not being created by one large corporation. As we mentioned earlier, this project is accepting ideas from engineers as well as people who have an expressed interest in building a car.

The Riversimple Hyrban can get up to 50 miles per hour (making them city cars) and can actually run about 240 to 300 miles on just a mere 2.2 pounds of hydrogen. These cars like other cars have the engineering to think about.

The Riversimple Hyrban will not have a gearbox, drive shafts or even power-assisted systems like windows and doors. Without the heavier equipment the Riversimple Hyrban is lightweight and well, simple.

As designed the Hyrban will save energy and save money on operating costs. These cars as we mentioned will not be sold but leased. The cost to lease is about $ 330 US dollars per month plus hydrogen fuel. If you are interested in the helping save the earth and drive an environmentally friendly car (and live in the United Kingdom) then the Riversimple Hyrban may be the car for you.

 

Written by Hydro Kevin Kantola