Pragmatism, Near Zero and Perfection Being the Enemy of Good Enough
We all know and understand that we must reduce harmful emissions from vehicles and other fossil fuel-consuming devices; this is an inarguable fact of the world we live in today. However, in the rush to achieve this, we may have overlooked a crucial aspect: everything is a process.
Attempting to go from one state to the next without any transition in the middle is incredibly challenging and can create additional barriers and problems that need to be addressed. Regarding vehicles, this challenge manifests in issues such as charging and refuelling infrastructure, adoption and manufacturing hurdles, vehicle capabilities—and, of course, cost.
Battery electric vehicles can be expensive and, in many applications, necessitate changes in logistics or operational methods due to reduced range and runtime. Fuel cell electric vehicles, meanwhile, offer the range and operational time needed but come with a higher cost and limited current component availability/manufacturing volume.
What if, as part of our progress toward net zero, we focused on achieving “near zero” first? Near zero emissions would enable us to significantly reduce harmful emissions at a much faster pace while avoiding some of the major challenges and delays currently impacting net-zero targets. Near zero is not a “cop-out”; it’s a practical step in the journey to net zero. After all, every engineering effort involves compromise, but the key is ensuring that compromise still drives meaningful progress.
We already have the infrastructure to produce large volumes of combustion engines. By further developing these engines to operate at maximum efficiency on non-hydrocarbon fuels, such as hydrogen and ammonia and integrating them with close-coupled electric machine generators and electric drive trains—we can achieve a viable near-term solution. This approach is ideal for vehicles that aren’t suited to battery-only power but leverages our existing manufacturing capabilities. At the same time, it provides a significant reduction in harmful carbon and particulate emissions.
Viritech’s range of combustion power generators, which utilise hydrogen and ammonia, offers a low-cost, high-capacity power solution for vehicles. These generators can function as range extenders or primary power sources and, when combined with Viritech’s Tri-Volt energy management system, enable electric drive vehicles to achieve ranges and operating times well beyond what battery-only versions offer. This is all attainable at a viable cost, with near-zero emissions during general operation and electric-only emission-free operation in most city and town driving cycles. They represent a highly practical, scalable, and manufacturable solution for applications that cannot rely solely on batteries today but are likely to transition to fuel cells in the future—a perfect engineering compromise in our journey toward net zero.
We have many “tools in the toolbox” and numerous “levers we can pull” to accelerate our path toward net zero. Let’s not allow perfection to become the enemy of “good enough,” or we may risk not reaching our destination at all.
Matt Faulks
CIO, Co-Founder
With a background in motorsport and low-volume sports car production, Matt founded TDF in 2009, which specialised in development projects for motorsports and automotive customers, including Formula One Management and BAC. His wide range of engineering skills includes leading expertise in the development of vehicle control systems and mechatronics integration.
