https://news.mit.edu/2024/future-motorcycles-could-be-hydrogen-0110
"MIT’s Electric Vehicle Team, which has a long record of building and racing
innovative electric vehicles, including cars and motorcycles, in international
professional-level competitions, is trying something very different this year:
The team is building a hydrogen-powered electric motorcycle, using a fuel cell
system, as a testbed for new hydrogen-based transportation.
The motorcycle successfully underwent its first full test-track demonstration
in October. It is designed as an open-source platform that should make it
possible to swap out and test a variety of different components, and for others
to try their own versions based on plans the team is making freely available
online.
Aditya Mehrotra, who is spearheading the project, is a graduate student working
with mechanical engineering professor Alex Slocum, the Walter M. May and A.
Hazel May Chair in Emerging Technologies. Mehrotra was studying energy systems
and happened to also really like motorcycles, he says, “so we came up with the
idea of a hydrogen-powered bike. We did an evaluation study, and we thought
that this could actually work. We [decided to] try to build it.”
Team members say that while battery-powered cars are a boon for the
environment, they still face limitations in range and have issues associated
with the mining of lithium and resulting emissions. So, the team was interested
in exploring hydrogen-powered vehicles as a clean alternative, allowing for
vehicles that could be quickly refilled just like gasoline-powered vehicles.
Unlike past projects by the team, which has been part of MIT since 2005, this
vehicle will not be entering races or competitions but will be presented at a
variety of conferences. The team, consisting of about a dozen students, has
been working on building the prototype since January 2023. In October they
presented the bike at the Hydrogen Americas Summit, and in May they will travel
to the Netherlands to present it at the World Hydrogen Summit. In addition to
the two hydrogen summits, the team plans to show its bike at the Consumer
Electronics Show in Las Vegas this month."
Cool project, but I don't think it's going anywhere. The economics of hydrogen
fuel for smaller vehicles just don't make sense for fundamental reasons of
physics. Good on them for making the plans available though.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
