Crazy car, crazy company: but maybe it’s the future

Edie Lush

11 July 2009

Edie Lush encounters Riversimple, a car project with a corporate philosophy that’s as unconventional as its technology and an urge to give away its secrets on the internet

Riversimple is either completely revolutionary or totally nuts. At a time when electric cars are the big green fashion, Riversimple’s founders have invented a hydrogen-powered car, and they’re giving away the design for free on the internet to anyone who’s interested. They plan to sell no cars (they’ll lease them instead) and to have a corporate structure in which a variety of ‘stakeholders’ have as much say as shareholders. They freely admit they’re not interested in building a money-spinner — but they’re looking for investors to join them nevertheless.

Crazy? Possibly. The Riversimple crew believe that if people are to continue to drive cars, given their environmental impact, not only will the cars have to be different, so will the companies behind them. Hugo Spowers, the brains of the project, was originally a race-car engineer. He says success on the track comes from ‘systems integration’ — putting things together differently, rather than inventing things anew. ‘In the early 1960s, Cooper and Lotus were building racing cars better because they were putting existing technology together in a different way. That’s what we’re trying to do with both the Riversimple car and the company,’ he tells me.

Riversimple’s vehicle is a two-seater made of carbon fibre, weighing 350 kilos. It is distinctly bug-like — the upward-opening doors make it look like it’s about to fly off. It runs on four hydrogen fuel cells and four electric motors, one on each wheel. Each motor’s batteries can recover and store 50 per cent of the energy generated when the car brakes, rather than losing it as heat (a process known as regenerative braking).

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