The why of hydrogen gasoline is fairly attention-grabbing, Hindenburg however. Right here’s the primary good cause to make use of hydrogen gasoline to energy an electrical motor: Whereas an e-bike battery takes hours to cost, even with a 4 or 5A charger, a hydrogen tank might be stuffed or “charged” in mere seconds. The tank might be pressurized to 1 megapascal (MPa), which interprets to 145 psi. As soon as charged, the tank can present as a lot as 40 mi. of vary on a single cost.
Right here’s another excuse why hydrogen is an attention-grabbing concept: Contemplating the scale and weight of the tank, carrying extra tanks can be straightforward to do and buying extra tanks received’t include a weight penalty of quite a lot of ounces. Doubling or tripling the e-bike’s vary wouldn’t be troublesome.
But another excuse why hydrogen makes a compelling gas: The exhaust is water.
Hydroride makes a number of completely different fashions of e-bikes. They provide a metropolis mannequin made for bike share packages, a folding e-bike and a “sport” e-bike that appears prefer it got here from the set of a sci-fi film thanks, partially, to a fork with solely a left leg.
The important thing to the system is the hydrogen gasoline generator which is roughly the scale and form of a house oxygen concentrator utilized by folks with respiratory points. The hydrogen generator takes 200ml (6.7 oz.) and turns that into 5g of hydrogen gasoline over a 5-hour time period. That 5g of hydrogen gasoline is what goes into the tank. Altering tanks on the e-bike takes about 10 seconds, they report.
The tank has a capability of 390ml (13.1 oz.) and measures simply 9.8 in. tall and a couple of.4 in. in diameter. One tank will maintain 20g of hydrogen, which signifies that it takes about 5 hours to generate sufficient hydrogen to offer an e-bike 40 mi. of vary. That’s fairly near what we see with many e-bikes.
