Automotive

SCG aims to field a hydrogen-powered Baja 1000 race truck

SCG aims to field a hydrogen-powered Baja 1000 race truck
SCG wants to take this hydrogen racing truck down to the Baja 1000 and be the first zero-emissions vehicle to finish
SCG wants to take this hydrogen racing truck down to the Baja 1000 and be the first zero-emissions vehicle to finish
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SCG wants to take this hydrogen racing truck down to the Baja 1000 and be the first zero-emissions vehicle to finish
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SCG wants to take this hydrogen racing truck down to the Baja 1000 and be the first zero-emissions vehicle to finish
The SCG team is looking for a range over 600 miles per tank
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The SCG team is looking for a range over 600 miles per tank
A street-legal production version would cost around US$100,000
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A street-legal production version would cost around US$100,000
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Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus has announced its intention to build an electric off-road truck powered by hydrogen through a fuel cell. The new project, if successful, would be the first zero-emissions vehicle to complete the gruelling Baja 1000 race.

Ex-movie producer and avowed car nut James Glickenhaus has a voracious appetite for extreme racing, be it at the 24 hours of Nurburgring, where SCG has taken six first-in-class wins with its ultra-lightweight SCG003 supercar, Le Mans, where it's planning to field a new SCG007 hypercar, or dodging cacti in the brutal Baja 1000 off-road desert race, where the SCG Boot debuted with a class win.

Having taken stock of his assets and divided them by the remainder of his life expectancy, Glickenhaus appears to be more or less planning to race himself into the grave, while building street-legal versions of his stunning race cars to keep the doors open.

His latest project, announced through social media, aims to go electric in the only way that's really practical right now for endurance racing: with a hydrogen-fuel-cell powertrain that can be topped up much quicker than a lithium battery.

A street-legal production version would cost around US$100,000
A street-legal production version would cost around US$100,000

The Glickenhaus Zero Emission Hydrogen Fuel Cell Boot Pickup Concept is an off-road racer with a body that's basically a quad cab ute with the back seats deleted and a meaty hydrogen system stuck in there instead, which SCG is specifying with a range over 600 miles (965 km) in mind.

Yes, it's a fuel cell, so the hydrogen will be converted into electricity and used to run an electric powertrain rather than being burned in the combustion engine. Yet still, SCG is considering manufacturing what it calls a "plug and play" system that could be used to covert any quad-cab pickup to hydrogen-electric. "Pull engine. That space becomes a trunk. Sell engine. Put in our unit," reads the company's response to an Instagram enquiry.

This will first and foremost be a race car, of course, with the Baja 1000 firmly in Glickenhaus' sights. It would also be designed to be Dakar-eligible, and "as capable as our current ICE Glickenhaus Class 1/2 Boot." Customer race teams could buy these for about half a million US dollars. The same money would buy you a "hand-built, road legal/fully Baja capable" SCG version, and a less racy street legal version "with similar GVWR and towing capacity as, say, a Chevy Silverado" would run you about US$100,000.

The SCG team is looking for a range over 600 miles per tank
The SCG team is looking for a range over 600 miles per tank

The company is also looking into building its own "reasonably priced, quick, 24/7/365 worldwide refueling solution," whatever that might look like.

SCG hopes to start building a prototype later this year, but Glickenhaus has already thrown down a challenge to Elon Musk and Tesla to come race the Cybertruck against this new beast. The response? "Crickets," according to SGC, but then Tesla is no racing operation, and running a battery-electric against a fast-refilling hydrogen car in a grueling endurance race would hardly give the Cybertruck a great chance at success.

Fun and games!

Source: Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus

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2 comments
2 comments
FB36
It is extremely bad idea to use hydrogen as fuel for land/sea/air transportation because it is pretty much explosive!
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!)
christopher
900 miles at speed on tough terrain for 20 hours using electricity - that's about half a megawatt-hour of energy? aka 25kw continuous? aka 32kg hydrogen? I was expecting the math to say it's impossible, but it looks like 25kw fuel-cells exist and the usage isn't too whacky.