Turkish students get 568 km from one liter of hydrogen in tiny SAHİMO car
Posted Jul 5th 2009 7:27PM by Sebastian Blanco
Going 568 kilometers (353 miles) on a liter of hydrogen is nothing to scoff at, but for the students at Sakarya University in northwestern Turkey who built the SAHİMO vehicle, it's simply not good enough. The hydrogen-powered ride was the third-most fuel-efficient vehicle in the recent 26th Shell Eco Marathon, but for the Global Green Challenge down in Australia this October, the students are shooting for 1,000 km per liter.
The SAHİMO can squeeze so much distance from so little fuel because it's ridiculously lightweight. The enclosed vehicle weighs just 110 kilograms (240 pounds). While details about the powertrain and exactly how the students plan to almost double their range in the little car weren't easily found in our English-language searches, we can assume they won't be cheap to implement. The SAHİMO, as is, cost $170,000.
[Source: Today's Zaman, SAİTEM via Treehugger]
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
Serge 7:03PM (7/06/2009)
The marathon rules I referenced above specify that hydrogen is supplied either from a metal hydride cartridge or from container compressed to 200 bars, which is ~2,900 psi.
The problems you've noted are exacerbated by journalistic laziness from Mr. Blanco. That name sounds so close to Mr. Blencoe...
fazlifatih 3:22AM (7/25/2009)
Hi all,
Thanks a lot for great comments regarding our car. I'm Fatih, team manager of SAİTEM which made SAHİMO.
I want to make samethings proper in your mind.
Shell logo is huge because it's an obligation for competition.Royal Dutch - Shell company is organizing this race since 80's. this year was the 25th eco-marathon race in Europe. They do this to add some good manners to their corporational appearence. You know, some kind of sustainability lies, etc.. bla blabla ... Shell just gave 1000 € financial support to teams for logistical requirements.
There are some faults in the news. We made this new via a turkish newspaper.But they made some mistakes about SAHİMO. That's not one liter hydrogene which made SAHİMO goes 568 km with. That's the amount of hydrogene which correspondance with one liter-shell oil. So, it's approximately 115 Nliter in pressurized hydrogene cylinder. The cylinder was 160 Nliter when we take it just before the race. I mean we spent 115 liter in gas form. when you consider in liquified form, it's gonna take apporx. 0.020 liter hydrogene. That's exactly like what Chris said above.
And i see benefits to say that if you wish to storage hydrogene in solid form, that's clearly possible with Metal hydride containers. We normally used metal hydrides, we're making tests with our schools and country. Just plugging pressurized containers in the race.
Also, SAHIMO doesn't compete in Global Green Challenge. But SAGUAR will :)) SAGUAR is our solarcar project which is the last edition our solarcar series. Just two months stayed to Global Green Challenge. You can take a glance via our website, if you're interested.
I'd be glad if anybody wanna ask anything about our projects. Thanks for your precious comments again. The Oil industry is very complicated as i see. There are lot's of unknown parameters to comment clear regarding why hydrogene technologies are still not in our daily life.
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sinnerxx 5:07PM (9/04/2009)
Helal olsun size be... İşte Türkün gücü.. Yöneticiden özür diliyorum. sitenin İngilizce ahengini bozduğum için. Ama olsun. SAİTEM ekibine helal olsun...
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