I suppose, these auto shows will never stop surprising us and car creators will never get tired of making new and completely great cars. Have you ever heard about Morgan? Yeah, but apart from a famous fashion apparel brand, it is the traditional British car brand, and it has officially announced that it is going to launch a LifeCar concept, that is a hydrogen-fueled car possessing a wood-frame body. This super car will be presented at the 2008 Geneva Auto Show.
Modern Futuristic Morgan�s car fuel-cell hybrid with Picture 3
The hydrogen is converted to electricity using a 4 stack hydrogen PEM fuel cell. Apart from 22 kW of electricity, the fuel cell produces only heat and water as by-products. The fuel cell made by QinetiQ operates at 45% efficiency, a significant advance over the conventional internal combustion engine. Electricity is directed to 4 electric motors/generators, each connected directly to a driving wheel. Not only are these motors super-efficient � 92-94% across their operating range - but they have inbuilt re-generative braking, recapturing the kinetic energy for when vivid acceleration is required (and reducing energy consumption still further). Whilst regenerative braking is not a new concept, current applications offer around 10% energy reuse, whereas in LIFECar, up to 50% of this stored kinetic energy can be re-employed. This regained energy needs to be efficiently stored and delivered. Historically this has been the job of batteries, which are rich in heavy metals, heavy in weight and limited in their ability to deliver or receive high power bursts of energy. LIFECar has shunned these in favour of a bank of ultra capacitors. These have the ability to shuffle up to 1000 amps back and forth, maximising energy storage during braking and delivering powerful acceleration.
The Morgan LIFECar takes a fresh look at transport, offering as revolutionary an approach to personal freedom as did the brilliant Morgan Threewheeler introduced by HFS Morgan nearly 100 years ago. The LIFECar is powered by a fuel cell that is sized to meet the constant load requirement of cruising (about 20% of peakpower) and as a result significant weight and cost reductions have been made over other designs. By recapturing energy during braking, maximum performance is available to LIFECar for acceleration from this unique mix of technologies. The initial concept was the brainchild of Hugo Spowers of RiverSimple, a specialist company investigating new ideas in environmentally sound transport solutions. In order to realise LIFECar however, several partners were needed to make the concept a reality. The project is based around hydrogen as the fuel source because when it burns the only emission is pure water. Hydrogen is potentially abundant and Spowers brought in Linde to the project for their expertise across the whole hydrogen supply chain from production and distribution through to their high pressure refuelling systems.
There is a new model in the Aero range - the Morgan Aero 8 America. Starting price looks like this $115,000 and you will get graphite side scoops, a rear diffuser, and side exit exhausts. As to its interior, we have a deal with full quilted leather. Engine: 4.4-liter BMW
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