Are you prepared for Wrath of the Lich King? WoW Insider has you covered!

Morgan developing zero-emissions sports car

Posted Jul 5th 2005 10:00AM by John Neff
Filed under: Hybrids/Alternative, Sports/GTs

morganaero8The LIFEcar, currently being developed by Morgan on the Aero8 platform, will be a hydrogen fuel cell-powered sports car capable of delivering the speed and handling of its gas-powered counterparts. The development of the car is being partly funded by Britain's Department of Trade and Industry and involves some of the country's best engineering firms. One trick this clean car will employ is the use of powerful capacitors that can store and rapidly release enough energy to make being an environmentally conscious driver fun. A prototype of the LIFEcar is expected in two to three years.

  • Read
  • 12 Comments
  • |  Share
Subscribe to these comments

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

vote up vote downReportNeutral
charlie

charlie @ Dec 18th 2005 11:05PM

lol, "zero emissions" is bs. What do they have to do to make the hyrdogen? Sure they can electrolyze it from water using enegery from solar or wind energy, but wind energy is limited geographically and solar energy is too expensive. I remember reading that to use solar energy to power electrolysis for enough hydrogen to be comparable in power to 1 gallon of gasoline would cost over $10. Imagine paying $10 a gallon for gasoline. You can get the hydroden by stripping it away from hydrocarbons... a bastard process that still creates plenty of emissions. The best way would be using a nuclear reactor... but you still have to deal with the waste.

Reply
vote up vote downReportNeutral
Griffon

Griffon @ Dec 18th 2005 11:05PM

As far as clean sport cars go, I'd still prefer the Venturi, which is fully electric. Having to deal with hydrogen is cumbersome compared to the simple recharging with an electric plug.

Reply
vote up vote downReportNeutral
odograph

odograph @ Dec 18th 2005 11:05PM

There is an important difference between a "prototype" and a "concept car."

The first (prototype) refers to the first example, from which production models are then drawn.

The sad thing is that promoters of a "hydrogen economy" can produce new "prototypes" every year, without anything more than a vague promise of honest production in a few more decades.

In the case of this Morgan, this other article is up-front about it being a "concept car" funded by industry and government (at a cost of $3.3 Million US Dollars).

Reply
vote up vote downReportNeutral
odograph

odograph @ Dec 18th 2005 11:05PM

Oops, tried the wrong kind of link. Here it is as plain text:

http://www.h2cars.biz/artman/publish/article_763.shtml

Reply
vote up vote downReportNeutral
Pinkerton

Pinkerton @ Dec 18th 2005 11:05PM

Liquid hydrogen is a great way to store energy. While we need to work out the efficiencies of creating electricity from solar, etc, that does not mean we should abandon research on hydrogen vehicles in the meantime.

Reply
vote up vote downReportNeutral
rollie demay

rollie demay @ Dec 18th 2005 11:05PM

The furure is seldom heralded by those of lesser insight. The hurdles we see will be surmounted by intellect not apparent to us at this time. The past is littered with naysayers run over by the "breakthru" inventions of determined minds. The distribution network may be the biggest problem, as I doubt the oil companies will exactly embrace the conversion.

Reply
vote up vote downReportNeutral
odograph

odograph @ Dec 18th 2005 11:05PM

So rollie, where's my jetpack? Where's my flying car? Where's my lunar colony? Where's my cure for the common cold? Where's my fusion power plant? Where's my superconducting high-tension wires (and motors and batteries)? Where's my ...

I am an engineer, I just understand the difference between problems we can get our arms around, and pie-in-the-sky promises.

Yes, we will absolutely get surprising new developments. I also predict they will be in left-field domains, where not so many people are working. Progress in well-understood, and well-funded, problem domains is slow hard work. And just because we want a solution, that doesn't mean we'll get one.

Engineering is not magic.

Reply
vote up vote downReportNeutral
rollie demay

rollie demay @ Dec 18th 2005 11:05PM

Odograph-----I have seven United States Patents in my name. I am sorry your personal flying car is not one of them, however when you enjoy some of your life's conviences not available to your parents, I may have been involved. I am not patting my own back, but think you are offbase to attack me with your obvious limited intellect. If you are an engineer as you claim, I suspect it will be temporary.

Reply
vote up vote downReportNeutral
odograph

odograph @ Dec 18th 2005 11:05PM

You know, in twenty-some years of science and engineering I have never heard a real live engineer use words like "your obvious limited intellect." It doesn't quite ring true.

Reply
vote up vote downReportNeutral
rollie demay

rollie demay @ Dec 18th 2005 11:05PM

Odograph---Forget it. This is just childish. This forum isn't ment for this crap.

Reply
vote up vote downReportNeutral
Tim

Tim @ Dec 18th 2005 11:05PM

That car body looks F-ing sweet. I love the classic car look. Its good to see people still trying to work on helping out the environment. I know hybrid automobiles are getting some flack these days. As far as development goes, they are also working on a sports car that goes in the water called the GIbbs Aquada:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/content.cfm?content_type=article&content_type_id=4402
This is pretty neat.

Reply
vote up vote downReportNeutral
pump_it_up

pump_it_up @ Dec 18th 2005 11:05PM

I'm starting to wonder... should this be affordable?

Reply

Autoblog Features





Featured Galleries

2009 Ford Focus Coupe
2008 Toyota Alphard / Vellfire
Lamborghini Reventon unboxed in Las Vegas
Hennessey Venom 1000TT SRT Coupe
Mazda Biante
Porsche Baby Cayenne - spy shots
BringBacktheSHO Concept V2
2009 BRABUS SL
Corvette ZR1 on the 'Ring - spy shots
Devil May Care: Bentley Special Series Edition
Mercedes-Benz SL 63 AMG Edition IWC
Inside Line Challenger SRT8 road trip

 

Find Your Next Car

Resources


Sponsored Links

Autoblog bloggers (30 days)

#BloggerPostsCmts
1Damon Lavrinc11320
2John Neff928
3Noah Joseph730
4Jeremy Korzeniewski510
5Chris Shunk501
6Alex Nunez4825
7Jonathon Ramsey451
8Michael Harley336
9Sam Abuelsamid3211
10Dan Roth296
11Sebastian Blanco221
12Drew Phillips182
13Merritt Johnson130
14Chris Tutor120
15Justin Gardiner60
16John McElroy30
17Frank Filipponio31

Most Commented On (7 days)

Weblogs, Inc. Network