FuelCell – RAY MASSEY: Hyundai’s hydrogen-powered Nexo purifies polluted air

As Britain’s motorists are compelled by the Authorities right into a future of electrical vehicles charged from the mains, some specialists are asking: ought to we be stepping on the gasoline as an alternative?

By that they imply hydrogen – essentially the most considerable aspect within the universe.

The query got here into sharp focus this week when billionaire British tycoon Sir Jim Ratcliffe signed a landmark cope with Korean automotive large Hyundai to supply zero-emission variations of his forthcoming new INEOS Grenadier 4×4 that can run off hydrogen-powered electrical energy.

Many specialists imagine hydrogen gas cells are the actual inexperienced future: a part of what would possibly turn out to be ‘a hydrogen economic system’ that includes vehicles, vans, buses, planes and even houses.

Gas cell vehicles are successfully ‘inexperienced’ energy stations on wheels. They’ve zero emissions as their solely by-product is water.

Remarkably, in addition they purify the encircling air as they drive by filtering out dangerous particulates. Gas-cell champion Hyundai goals to leapfrog the battery-technology of electrical vehicles.

Its five-seater Nexo gas cell just isn’t low-cost, from £65,495, however its 414-mile vary beats most electrical vehicles. It does relaxation to 62 mph in 9.54 seconds as much as a high pace of 111 mph.

A gas cell automotive such because the Nexo would not burn hydrogen. Hydrogen from its excessive stress gas tank is utilized in a chemical response – reverse electrolysis – which takes place in a micro-thin membrane.

The membrane acts as a catalyst for a response between the hydrogen and oxygen from the air, which generates electrical energy.

In a trial, a single Nexo purified 918.75kg of London air: the identical quantity one individual breathes in 60 days. However not everyone seems to be satisfied.

A latest report by Cambridge-based IDTechEx says battery expertise is catching up on vary and located that fuel-cell vehicles are 60 per cent dearer to purchase and 3 times as a lot to run.

Nissan backs Sunderland plant 

American author Mark Twain despatched a telegram noting: ‘Stories of my dying are tremendously exaggerated.’

Nissan will need to have been equally tempted this week when a commerce press gossip column in Germany claimed the Japanese firm and its French accomplice Renault have been about to announce they have been closing their Sunderland plant over Brexit and quitting the UK.

The stories have been gleefully leapt on by arch-Remainers keen to take advantage of any Brexit Schadenfreude, and given wider circulation by the motor business’s Automotive Information and the BBC.

However with a Brexit deal deadline looming, Nissan, which has invested £400 million to supply the third-generation Qashqai in Britain from subsequent 12 months, mentioned: ‘These rumours will not be true.’

Nonetheless, they did say a no- deal Brexit and ensuing tariffs might threaten the plant’s long-term sustainability.

Not OK Beemer

BMW has confronted a livid international backlash over a social media advert that ‘insults’ the post-war Child Boomer technology who’re its core clients.

The @BMW Twitter account for its new £85,000 flagship iX electrical SUV, with BMW CEO Oliver Zipse, challenges readers: ‘OK, Boomer. And what’s your cause to not change?’ However Richard Auckock, chairman of Britain’s

Guild of Motoring Writers, posted: ‘Do you at all times discuss to your clients like this? Outrageous.’ BMW has apologised.