Aqwon, the First Hydrogen Scooter

An anonymous reader writes "After 10 years of research and development, Josef Zeitler has developed the first hydrogen-filled two stroke engine scooter with technical approval from the German TÜV. In case of an accident, the tank will freeze and no fire or explosion would occur. Anyone can fill-up the tank on the scooter within 3 to 4 minutes, without being in any danger. The pressure sensor will transmit the data to a computer chip, which will then accumulate and send the necessary information, regarding the proper hydrogen mixture, to the injection jet. This process of refilling is possible with a newly developed system consisting of pressure tanks and a hydrogen generator. AQWON's top speed is about 50 km/h (31 mph), the power is 2.6 kWh and the weight is minimal. This is the same as a petrol/oil two stroke scooter. There is no extra maintenance service required."

Comments

Re:Two stroke?

[skillio]

uh. it has no emissions, its hydrogen powered dude. the case of a tree-hugger barking up the wrong tree (:

Range

[gerf]

is 100km. That's not bad at all really. But still, the major question remains: where are we getting hydrogen from?!

We don't have large hydrogen producing plants, and we don't have a major distribution center to support it. I'm assuming you'll have to fill up your tank at home, which means installing a LOT of equipment, at GREAT expense, at least until a good distribution system is in place. Yes there are some hydrogen refueling places, but not really that many yet.

I support many of Bush's plans, but he really has to drop oil, and focus on something even more proven: that technology advances, and new products replace the old.

Re:Two stroke?

[Anonymous Coward]

Simplistic formulae is best left to textbooks. It burns hydrogen and AIR. Air is NOT O2, air is O2 AND N2 and etc....

78% of our air is Nitrogen, 21% is oxygen, and the remainder is noble and trace gases.

You WILL get Nitrous oxide compounds even burning with this fuel, so yes, you will see exhaust pollution, just not as nasty or copious.

Also, the higher temperatures will form more carbon monoxide vs dioxide ratios than normal

Alternative-powered vehicles seem to be crippled..

[Sleepy]

There seem to be a number of "alternative" vehicles, but even if you ignore cost, refueling, etc. in the USA they are impractical for one major reason:

You can't drive them in enough places.

I DON'T expect these things to drive on the interstate highways at 55+ MPH, but...

AFAIK, most of the electric and other alt-vehicles will do 30MPH (48kph). That's great if you ONLY want to drive through your city center but it's useless anywhere else. Not just this vehicle, but lots of alt vehicles are governed to very low speeds, and then you have general cars/motorbikes/trucks. There's nothing in-between.

Most cities have flattened out into suburban sprawl. Here there are as many people (and jobs) AS the city proper. Good luck driving anything limited to 30MPH on a 40MPH road: it may be legal, but you'll probably be pulled over by an ignorant policeman (or one trying to protect you from the 30 cars tailgating and making illegal passes around you).

There are a lot of drivers who believe if you impede their progress, you are stealing their lifeforce and so you are attacking them and they must defend themselves by going into "road rage" mode.

I'm not kidding either. It's perfectly legal to pedal your bike on most non-interstate (highway) roads, but unless it has a wide paved margin/edge like a breakdown lane, good luck... you'll be run off the road. The police generally aren't interested unless you are seriously hurt or someone recently died. In my small city, they ticket bikes on the sidewalk but not hostile drivers.

Sorry for the rant. An alternative-powered scooter would be SWEET if it ran 40mph with a range of 100 miles. Then you could drive to work and back without feeling like you were "asking for trouble" on the road.

Re:I'm thinking

[WindBourne]

PRO

• Far less pollution (there is still some, but very minimal)
• Multiple sources of energy - oil can be broken into h2, but wind, solar, nuke, etc can also produce it. So can h2o2. Less dependancies on a flakey part of the world.
• Ease of fill, if the vision holds out. This is one of the more major problems. You need filling stations. But you will also be able to fill up at night. h20 + electricity -> fuel when power consumption is very low. great way to even out things.
• Down the road, probable lower costs. One of the problems with electric cars is that if forces the economy to try and adjust many points all at once (fueling, maintenence, and building) . That does not happen easily. It is better to make small changes through out. An all-electric vehicle is ideal in theory, but so far, we are very far from it.
• change helps drive economy.
• a scooter is acceptable as inespensive transportation. buying a 5k item is much easier to accept than a 25K item.
  • 
    CON:
    you will end up in no more peices than a regular scooter would.

Re:First Hydrogen, eh?

[pe1rxq]

Actually the Hindenburg disaster happened because its hull was basicly made out of explosives.
Althoug hydrogen is flamable, so our oil based fuels

Jeroen

Re:First Hydrogen, eh?

[halo8]

ya know.. im be anal here..

but..

this post ISNT funny, this is the kind of backward 1930's thinking that has been holding everything back for the past 66 years..

35 ppl died thats it.. just 35.. thats a CNN story for a day.. nothing more, big fireball thats it. big deal

hydogen cars and new airships have been soo promising from new transport ships, to rescue, to heavy lifting construction, to communication platforms..

but its your kind of backward mentality that is stopping investors from exploiting a wonderfull resource