UK startup Viritech has launched its gorgeous Pininfarina-penned Apricale hypercar at Goodwood, and dropped some impressive specifications to go with it. This hydrogen-powered monster will break both the 1,000-horsepower and 1-hp-per-kg barriers.
A weight figure under 1,000 kg (2,205 lb) makes the Apricale one of the lightest cars in the vaunted thousand-pony club, and it's an incredibly impressive demonstration of the company's core technology: lightweight "Graph-Pro" hydrogen storage tanks that are built into the structure of the carbon fiber chassis, as opposed to heavy bolt-on tanks that weigh 20 times more than the hydrogen they carry.
The Apricale carries some 5.4 kg (11.9 lb) of hydrogen at 700 bar pressure. It runs this hydrogen through a "multi-hundred kilowatt" fuel cell to produce electricity, which is either sent straight to two 400-kW (536-hp) electric motors on the front and rear axles, or siphoned off to charge up a 6-kWh high-performance battery, with the "Tri-Volt" energy management system deciding how much goes where.
The battery's there to provide short-term boost power when you need all of those thousand ponies – which Viritech seems to presume won't be all that often. So while it's accurate to say this thing can make 1,000 hp, it's also accurate to say that's for a very short time: an absolute max of 27 seconds, if my math's correct and battery performance magically doesn't drop off.
Once the battery's depleted, the car will be limited to whatever "multi-hundred killowatt" means. And honestly, you know what? I'm OK with that. I've ridden and driven some very fast vehicles in my day, and 20-something seconds of full throttle on anything with a horsepower per kilogram will be a very long 20-something seconds indeed.
Viritech promises zero-emissions motoring at speeds up to and over 200 mph (322 km/h), and says a full tank of hydrogen will take you somewhere around 350 miles (560 km) before you need to go hunting for a hydrogen station. Good luck with that, Brits – as of 2021 there were a total of 15 hydrogen stations in the entire UK, which is frankly more than I'd have expected.
That's not really the point though; only 25 of these things will be built, with deliveries planned to start in 2024. Viritech doesn't want to be a hypercar company first and foremost; this machine's really more about demonstrating the company's lightweight gas storage and hydrogen/battery hybrid energy management systems in the most vivid form possible.
As we discussed when we first became aware of Viritech, the company's really more interested in becoming a tier-one or tier-two supplier of hydrogen tech to the broader automotive, heavy transport and even aviation industries – areas where it could make a much bigger contribution to humanity than just cranking out ultra-exclusive fancypants-mobiles for people with too much money.
Source: Viritech
Imagine a future world w/ all kinds of hydrogen vehicles, tanker trucks, gas stations everywhere!
Are we seriously thinking that there will be never any accidents/leaks/ruptures/mishandling to trigger massive explosions?
Not to mention, there is actually no need at all to use hydrogen as fuel!
All light/small vehicles are already becoming fully electric & all heavy/big land/sea/air vehicles just need us to start producing biodiesel/biofuel at large scales!
(From all possible industrial/agricultural/forestry waste/biomass & trash & sewage!)
This is basically a Model S plaid in (very) pretty clothes, at least performance-wise. Even the range is not much different
H2 fuel cells in passenger cars are non-sensical. Batteries already fulfill 95% of personal car transport range requirements with less complexity and far more choice as to where to fuel up.
Goods vehicles are another matter, but even there there are plenty of opportunities for batteries. My postman and local courier (DPD) are already doing their rounds in electric vans...
h2 may well be good for heavy trucks and buses, where range and speed of fill-up speed become far more important, but then the bus depots and trucks stops are going to be far easier to provision with h2 storage than the countless petrol stations.
And 5kg of H2 is only 5 gal gasoline worth of energy so just how far will that go?
If you compare the size of even a modestly sized automotive fuel cell (eg Toyota's Mirai) with the size and shape of this car, it looks extremely improbable that you could fit a 'multi-hundred kW' FC stack in it, let alone all the other technology required... and a driver.
Concept vehicles rock, demonstrate: h2, battery swap, structural tanks, structural batteries, flying cars, peroxide rockets, realtime camouflage, 360 surround sound and whatever else your company can come up with, we are all the richer for exploring great concepts...
NB. A 1700kg car with 1200HP set up right will beat any 3000kg car with the same power, bring it on. If people can't think where H2 storage MIGHT have a niche, then they aren't in a position to criticize those cracking on with it. (More batteries aren't always the solution- in cost or weight terms.)
PS. Just my opinion, no diktats here.
Lol, ha ha ha...