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AUTOMOBILES & ALTERNATIVE ENERGY
SANTAN SANTIVIMOLNAT
The concept car has a 900-litre hydrogen tank that will enable the car to go nearly 50 kilometres per fill-up and reach a top speed of 90 km/h. |
The local development of fuel cell-powered cars has moved a step closer to reality with the introduction of a prototype hydrogen car.
The car was designed by a group of researchers led by Air Marshal Morakod Chansumruard, a retired military official.
He is also the president of Clean Fuel Energy Enterprise Co, the inventor and producer of electric-powered vehicles used in golf courses, villages, public parks, resorts, hotels and factories.
Under the hood, a radically different look. |
The research was funded by National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT) for 14 million baht.
AM Morakod started working on the research in 2003 and sped up the work in the four months after receiving financial support from the NRCT.
The concept car, which arrives at a time when fuel prices are setting records all over the world, ran smoothly during a demonstration last Friday.
If the fuel cell car went into commercial production in Thailand, it could help reduce heavy dependence on imported oil. More importantly, cars that run on hydrogen and electricity emit water and not gases that cause global warming.
AM Morakod said the concept car, believed to be the first in Asia except Japan, was run on a fuel cell stack of 8-10 kilowatts that also left enough to power the air-conditioning and audio-visual systems.
The hydrogen tank has a capacity of 900 litres that will enable the car to go nearly 50 kilometres per fill-up and reach a top speed of 90 kilometres per hour.
Hydrogen fuel cells create electricity to run a vehicle in the same way as a battery-powered vehicle. However, fuel cells need to have their electricity-generating substance such as hydrogen constantly replenished.
AM Morakod said the local supply of hydrogen was abundant as it was produced by many petrochemical plants in the Eastern Seaboard provinces as a byproduct but was released unused. It is estimated that each plant released about eight million litres per hour of hydrogen.
Tapping the supply for just 24 hours from these plants would yield enough hydrogen for 120,000 cars. The plants offer the hydrogen free but filling the containers would cost money.
Many investors have approached AM Morakod to venture into fuel cell-powered car production.
He estimated that a fuel cell car produced commercially in Thailand would cost a few million baht, but that would be about one-tenth the cost seen in some countries.
As well, he said, some petrol station operators planned to talk to him about the possibility of investing in hydrogen facilities.
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