Skip to main content

Could startup Riversimple be the Tesla of hydrogen cars?

A Welsh tech startup named Riversimple has introduced an experimental hydrogen-powered city car designed to be simple, efficient, affordable, and light.

Updated 02-22-2016 by Ronan Glon: Added more technical specifications.

Called Rasa, the highly aerodynamic two-seater was drawn by Chris Reitz, the man who helped pen the retro-chic Fiat 500. It weighs under 1,200 pounds thanks in part to a monocoque carbon fiber chassis that tips the scale at just 88 pounds without anything bolted to it, and body panels made out of composite materials. Riversimple is familiar with weight-saving measures because its research and development team includes engineers who come from the world of Formula 1.

Accessed via gullwing doors, the cabin is refreshingly simple and uncluttered. It features a three-spoke steering wheel, two seats, a pod that houses a pair of gauges, a dash-mounted screen framed by buttons, and not a lot else. Exposed carbon fiber emphasizes the car’s ultra-light construction. Riversimple told Digital Trends that the prototype doesn’t have a trunk, but the production model will boast roughly six cubic feet of storage.

Hydrogen stored in a tank mounted behind the passenger compartment is converted into electricity by an 8.5-kw, 11-horsepower fuel cell and sent to four in-wheel electric motors each rated at 125 pound-feet of torque. A brake energy recuperation system captures the kinetic energy that’s generated when the car brakes and transfers it to a bank of 120 lithium-hybrid supercapacitators, a system that’s similar in concept to the one found on Toyota’s Le Mans racer. With a capacity of 1.9MJ, the supercapacitors send the energy back to the motors when the car accelerates again. In theory, the prototype has a 300-mile range while emitting nothing but water, and it returns the equivalent of a little over 260 mpg. However, it has a top speed of just 60 mph.

Riversimple stresses the Rasa is fully street-legal because it was developed to comply with European safety regulations. If everything goes according to plan, the startup will build an initial batch of 20 cars that will be put in the hands of a carefully selected group of customers as part of a pilot program. Regular production is scheduled to kick off in Wales in 2018, but you’ll never be able to buy one.

Instead, motorists will pay a fixed monthly fee that covers the cost of using the car, maintenance, insurance, and hydrogen. The fee hasn’t been set yet, though Riversimple promises its car won’t be more expensive to own than a conventional, gasoline-burning model. The project is as ambitious as it sounds, but it’s promising enough that Riversimple earned a £2 million (roughly $2.9 million) grant from the Welsh government to develop the Rasa.

The Rasa - the new hydrogen powered car by Riversimple
Ronan Glon
Ronan Glon is an American automotive and tech journalist based in southern France. As a long-time contributor to Digital…
Tesla, Warner Bros. dodge some claims in ‘Blade Runner 2049’ lawsuit, copyright battle continues
Tesla Cybercab at night

Tesla and Warner Bros. scored a partial legal victory as a federal judge dismissed several claims in a lawsuit filed by Alcon Entertainment, a production company behind the 2017 sci-fi movie Blade Runner 2049, Reuters reports.
The lawsuit accused the two companies of using imagery from the film to promote Tesla’s autonomous Cybercab vehicle at an event hosted by Tesla CEO Elon Musk at Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) Studios in Hollywood in October of last year.
U.S. District Judge George Wu indicated he was inclined to dismiss Alcon’s allegations that Tesla and Warner Bros. violated trademark law, according to Reuters. Specifically, the judge said Musk only referenced the original Blade Runner movie at the event, and noted that Tesla and Alcon are not competitors.
"Tesla and Musk are looking to sell cars," Reuters quoted Wu as saying. "Plaintiff is plainly not in that line of business."
Wu also dismissed most of Alcon's claims against Warner Bros., the distributor of the Blade Runner franchise.
However, the judge allowed Alcon to continue its copyright infringement claims against Tesla for its alleged use of AI-generated images mimicking scenes from Blade Runner 2049 without permission.
Alcan says that just hours before the Cybercab event, it had turned down a request from Tesla and WBD to use “an icononic still image” from the movie.
In the lawsuit, Alcon explained its decision by saying that “any prudent brand considering any Tesla partnership has to take Musk’s massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which sometimes veers into hate speech, into account.”
Alcon further said it did not want Blade Runner 2049 “to be affiliated with Musk, Tesla, or any Musk company, for all of these reasons.”
But according to Alcon, Tesla went ahead with feeding images from Blade Runner 2049 into an AI image generator to yield a still image that appeared on screen for 10 seconds during the Cybercab event. With the image featured in the background, Musk directly referenced Blade Runner.
Alcon also said that Musk’s reference to Blade Runner 2049 was not a coincidence as the movie features a “strikingly designed, artificially intelligent, fully autonomous car.”

Read more
Toyota shifts gears: 15 New EVs and a million cars by 2027
Front three quarter view of the 2023 Toyota bZ4X.

After years of cautiously navigating the electric vehicle (EV) market, Toyota is finally ramping up its commitment to fully electric vehicles.
The Japanese automaker, which has long relied on hybrids, is now planning to develop about 15 fully electric models by 2027, up from five currently. These models will include vehicles under the Toyota and Lexus brands, with production expected to reach 1 million units annually by that year, according to a report from Nikkei.
This strategy marks a significant shift for Toyota, which has thus far remained conservative in its approach to electric cars. The company sold just 140,000 EVs globally in 2024—representing less than 2% of its total global sales. Despite this, Toyota is aiming for a much larger presence in the EV market, targeting approximately 35% of its global production to be electric by the end of the decade.
The Nikkei report suggests the company plans to diversify its production footprint beyond Japan and China and expanding into the U.S., Thailand, and Argentina. This would help mitigate the impact of President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on all car imports, as well as reduce delivery times. Toyota is also building a battery plant in North Carolina.
For now, Toyota has only two fully electric vehicles on the U.S. market: The bZ4X  and the Lexus RZ models. The Japanese automaker is expected to introduce new models like the bZ5X and a potential electric version of the popular Tacoma pickup.
Separately, Toyota and Honda, along with South Korea’s Hyundai, all announced on April 4 that they would not be raising prices, at least over the next couple of months, following the imposition of U.S. tariffs. According to a separate Nikkei report, Toyota’s North American division has told its suppliers that it will absorb the extra costs of parts imported from Mexico and Canada. Another 25% for automotive parts imported to the U.S. is slated to come into effect on May 3.

Read more
This could be the last laptop you ever need to buy
Framework laptop

Framework might not be a name you've heard of but it could soon be far more common as the company is about to release its modular laptop that could last you a lifetime.

Alright, any laptop laasting that long is a stretch, but the idea is that this will last you far longer than the usual update cycle.

Read more