[Sust-mar] The Green Interview: Steal this technology! Build this hydrogen car! says British engineer Hugo Spowers

[Laura Landon]

Text Box: www.thegreeninterview.com

NEWS RELEASE
April 26, 2013

 

Steal this technology! Build this hydrogen car! says Hugo Spowers

 

Hugo Spowers, race-car driver turned green automotive visionary, has
re-imagined not just the automobile, but the entire auto industry. The
result? A car that looks and runs like no other vehicle on the road, made by
a company that runs like no other in the business world. In a new
<http://www.thegreeninterview.com/> Green Interview conversation with host
Silver Donald Cameron at Riversimple's headquarters in Ludlow, England, Hugo
Spowers explains his remarkable car and his company's inside-out business
plan-which is backed by an heir to the Porsche dynasty.

 

Spowers' pioneering company, Riversimple, is tackling one of the most
intractable environmental problems:  our passionate addiction to the
automobile. Its modest goal: to systematically work toward the elimination
of environmental damage caused by personal transport.  

 

"We know it's bold, but to just reduce the environmental impact of personal
transport is an insufficient goal if you want to build a sustainable future,
because being less unsustainable is still not sustainable," says Spowers,
whose prototype hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle weighs just 350 kg and gets the
equivalent of 300 miles per gallon.

 

Furthermore, Riversimple's business model states that the company won't sell
cars-it will lease them, and recycle them when they're worn out. In another
counterintuitive move, the company gives away all its technology freely over
the Internet, and will help people who want to use it to build their own
green cars. The goal is to create a global network of technology and parts,
bringing down unit costs and helping Riversimple-style cars to grow and
spread.

 

"You can't expect the business model of the twentieth century to be very
well suited to dealing with the twenty-first century. And, as with the
design of the motor-car, it's much easier, we believe, to design a business
model to deal with the twenty-first century than to try and tweak something
that was designed to do something fundamentally different," says Spowers.
"Far better to have a business model that rewards resource efficiency rather
than resource consumption." 

 

An Oxford University engineering graduate with an MBA from Cranfield
University, Hugo Spowers designed, built, restored, and drove racing cars
until his concern about the environmental impacts of the private auto led
him to quit auto racing in 1999, when he was nearly 40. Today, he's in the
process of producing 60 vehicles for pilot projects in Shropshire and
Herefordshire. The cars have composite bodies built of extremely lightweight
but crash-resistant materials. They have four electric motors, no gearbox or
transmission, regenerative braking, and power provided by a 6 kW hydrogen
fuel cell. Even using hydrogen produced from natural gas, the car produces
less than one-third of the C02 emissions of any other car on the market.
Ultimately, Spowers aims to generate zero emissions by using hydrogen
produced from renewable sources.

 

"This could well be the future of the automobile," says Silver Donald
Cameron. "It's a new way of thinking about cars, and a new way of thinking
about business. Hugo is an inspiration, a blend of sweeping vision with
hard-headed business and engineering. It was a huge pleasure to meet him-and
I'd love to have one of his cars."

 

To watch an excerpt from the interview, click here
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXKg0fyuZrE> .

 

The Green Interview is a subscription website of extended interviews
produced and directed by Chris Beckett in partnership with Silver Donald
Cameron. The programs feature some of the world's greatest thinkers, writers
and observers-people whose ideas and perceptions are leading the way to a
new era of sustainability. Visitors to the site can watch one interview free
of charge. In addition, the interviews are available in thousands of
libraries worldwide through GreenR <http://www.gale.cengage.com/greenr/> ,
the environmental database service of Gale Cengage Learning.

For further information about this interview or others at
www.thegreeninterview.com, please contact: Silver Donald Cameron, host and
executive producer, at sdc at silverdonaldcameron.ca or 902-446-5577.

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