RiverSimple

The name LIFECar was coined by the team at OSCar Automotive Ltd (wholly owned by RiverSimple LLP). The name LIFECar summarises key design principles advocated by RiverSimple - Whole System Design, Energy Efficiency and Resource Minimisation. Indeed, LIFECar stands for Lightweight Integrated Fuel Efficient Car.

Hugo Spowers (founder of OSCar Automotive Ltd and Managing Partner at RiverSimple LLP), sought to demonstrate with the LIFECar project that significant gains in fuel efficiency could be achieved with readily available technology. In order for this project to take place, and with the initial and far-sighted support of the Morgan Motor Company, he formed the LIFECar consortium of Cranfield University, Linde, Oxford University and QinetiQ. The project is co-funded by the Technology Strategy Board, a government body which promotes and invests in technological innovation in the UK.

At RiverSimple, we believe that if environmentally sustainable cars are to be realised, zero emissions at point of use is necessary but not sufficient; the dominant metric for the industry will be energy efficiency. However, we have formed the view that the challenges that highly efficient cars face are much less about technology than about commitment and structural inertia. To an extent, by convincing one of Europe’s smallest OEMs (with a minimal research and development budget) to get involved with this project, we have demonstrated what is achievable, even with a limited budget (under £2 million).

Key elements of the design (as the name suggest) include the lightweight structure and the integrated whole system design of the vehicle around the characteristics of a fuel cell. LIFECar combines a hydrogen fuel cell with a bank of ultracapacitors such that cruise and acceleration requirements are decoupled and resolved in a highly optimised fashion. By combining these technologies with a lightweight structure, LIFECar achieves a unique combination of performance, cost effectiveness and fuel efficiency.

We have focused on the integration of existing technologies - rather than the development of new ones. Contrary to received wisdom, fuel cell technology can now do what needs to be done; the popularly perceived technological barriers are artifices of incremental design, grafting fuel cells into architectures developed to suit the characteristics of combustion engines, as opposed to “Whole System Design” around fuel cells.