Life Car

EPG is involved with a new vehicle, known as LIFECar. It will be ultra quiet and its exhaust systems will produce only water vapour. It promises a clean vehicle combined with sound motoring performance and stylish good looks.Artists impression of lifecar

Part-funded by the Department for Trade and Industry (DTI), LIFECar is a two and half-year longer project which marks a step change in vehicle power technology, producing a combination of performance, range and fuel economy that will be essential to the motoring world of the future.

LIFECar will be based on the Morgan Aero Eight, and is powered by a QinetiQ-made fuel cell, which converts hydrogen � and oxygen taken from the air around it � into electrical energy. It will be clean, quiet and economic, and the only waste product from the car will be water. The car\'s power system will be incredibly efficient, producing significant improvements over current fuel cell prototype vehicles, with the fuel cell powering four separate electric motors, one at each drive wheel

 

Regenerative braking and surplus energy will be used to charge ultra-capacitors, which will release their energy when the car is accelerating. This architecture will allow the car to have a much smaller fuel cell than is conventionally regarded as necessary: it will only be as large as is required to provide cruising speed, approximately 24 kW, as opposed to around 85kW proposed by most competitor systems.

Costing a total of �1.9m, with a mix of industry and DTI funding, the two and half year project will be broken down into the following areas of responsibility:

  • BOC Developing the hydrogen refuelling plant

  • Cranfield University Systems simulation, on-board computing and control of the fuel-cell hybrid powertrain. Also responsible for analysis of the integrated design process used.

  • Vehicle controller and control algorithm, together with modelling software

  • Morgan Motor Company Providing the car platform and assembling the final concept car

  • Oxford University Undertaking the design and control of the electric motors, and all power electronics.

  • OSCar Responsible for overall system design and architecture

  • QinetiQ Developing Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC)