The latest Riversimple Newsletter arrived through my virtual letterbox the other day. Not a lot new and more a whinge about changes in govt policy. Over 20 years in the making, and they are to be commended on their persistence, but the desired take off from a handful of beta-testing hydrogen fuel-cell electric cars, to production still waits.
They are not alone. Pioneering automotive giants Toyota if you look at "how many left" for their Mirai fuel Cell Vehicle will show that as of quarter 1 2023 they had 131 Mirai fuel cell vehicles registered on the roads of the United Kingdom, with inexplicably 17 on SORN.
There is a lot about the riversimple approach I like. The car is designed to be lightweight, aerodynamic, run on narrow tyres, motive power provided by electric motors with regen. They don't mention the word "battery" but use "super capacitor" as the recipient of the regen.
Not sure they will ever become car manufacturers, and scaling up looks to me like they would have to convince some bigger players to share their vision and turn their development work into a commercially viable product.
It is an odd looking product they have developed, the RASA, but this is maybe the shape which fuel efficient vehicles whether petrol, BEV or fuel cell optimally arrive at.
Neil