‘This will be an ordinary city car, but one that is 100 times more efficient than the cars that are currently driving around,’ says Eliane van Boxtel, a civil engineering student. Behind her is the project she has been working on for a year with a group of TU Delft students: the Eco Runner car.
It is now a black carbon hull, without seats and without tank. Her fellow students are busy with glue guns and screwdrivers, because today, among other things, the windows and wheels have to be placed.
What’s so special about the car? Well, he can drive more than 2000 kilometers on 1 kilo of hydrogen, that is from the Delft campus to Naples, and the tank is still not empty. “We want to make the most efficient car in the world and show what is possible,” says Van Boxtel enthusiastically. The first goal: to set the world record for the longest distance ever driven on hydrogen.
air shaft
The car can go this far thanks to a series of factors: its low weight (just over 70 kilos), a motor in the wheel, a deliberate speed of 45 kilometers per hour and an ideal shape. The students had the car tested in an air shaft to see where there was still air resistance and therefore profit to be made.
This is the university’s Dream Hall, a kind of large workshop full of high-tech equipment and old-fashioned workbenches, where the future is mapped out by a small group of hyper-motivated students.
The Hydromotion team is also working on hydrogen, but then to propel a 1200-kilo boat forward. They started construction in December, and next week they will sail for the first time. In the summer they participate in a race in Monaco. “At the beginning of the year I actually knew little about boats or hydrogen,” says Mandy Vermeijs, industrial design student. “Now we are all experts in it.”
Boat to fly
The boat is made to fly. Thanks to a kind of wings at the bottom, the boat rises a bit out of the water when a speed of 35 kilometers per hour is reached. “That is useful, because the resistance of the water then disappears, and then the boat can go about 55 kilometers per hour.” So pure profit.
It is still very expensive to make a hydrogen boat, but the team hopes to wake up the maritime sector that a lot is possible. “Maybe wealthy people can start with innovative superyachts. But ultimately there is a lot of potential to use hydrogen for large-scale consumers such as cruise ships. Because making them sail on electric batteries is quite difficult.”
Van Boxtel, of the automakers, estimates that in a few years we will be driving hydrogen cars on a large scale. “I think we should use all options: electric cars, but we can already see that the network is starting to fill up. So certainly also efficient hydrogen cars.” She already has tips for the industry: “Cars are getting bigger, it seems, but on average there are only 1.4 people in a vehicle. They can therefore be smaller, and with that you already achieve a big difference in consumption.”
When can the Eco Runner be ordered? “It’s not just a car for races: we want you to actually drive it. And we hope it will be legal on the road next year.”