Viritech releases new whitepaper: How to solve the challenge of zero emission vehicles
10 November, 2021. MIRA Technology Park, Warwickshire.
Pioneering cleantech engineers, Viritech, publish How to Solve the Challenge of Zero Emissions Vehicles, a whitepaper that delves into vehicle electrification to understand the underlying issues facing engineers as they race to develop solutions for zero emissions vehicles.
The company develops advanced technologies including integrated hydrogen powertrains, vehicle control systems, structural graphene pressure vessels and high-performance energy storage to enable hydrogen application in automotive, aerospace, marine and distributed power generation.
Viritech’s How to Solve the Challenge of Zero Emission Vehicles publishes today and is free to download here
As we race to decarbonise the global economy, Cleantech engineering has never been more important say pioneering cleantech engineers, Viritech today.
The company develops advanced technologies including integrated hydrogen powertrains, vehicle control systems, structural graphene pressure vessels and high-performance energy storage to enable hydrogen application in automotive, aerospace, marine and distributed power generation.
In How to Solve the Challenge of Zero Emission Vehicles Viritech looks at vehicle electrification to understand the underlying issues facing engineers as they develop solutions for zero emissions vehicles.
“As CTO of Viritech,” said Matt Faulks, “I spend my days focused on what we can do in sensible timescales to bring about the hydrogen revolution. With climate change accelerating, at Viritech we feel an urgency to put our technology expertise to use for applications that will have a near term/immediate impact.”
The company admits solving the challenges of zero emissions vehicles will be hard work. “There is no single solution that will replace fossil fuels. The thing about zero emissions vehicles is there is no low-hanging fruit,” says Faulks.
According to the company the two current contenders as onboard energy sources for road transport are lithium-ion batteries (Battery Electric Vehicles or BEVs) and hydrogen fuel-cells (Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles or FCEVs). Both are Electric Vehicles (EVs) and over the last about 10 years there has been great debate as to which is better. Viritech points out that the important thing to remember is both require electricity to be generated from scratch (either on or off vehicle), and this provides new, and in some cases greater, challenges than the established method of drilling a hole in the ground and refining ready-made energy in the form of oil into hydrocarbon fuels.
Faulks continues, “Our future lies in an ecosystem of solutions relying on a variety of technologies that are best suited for particular jobs – lithium batteries are a fantastic solution where mass compounding does not form part of the critical path, whilst hydrogen power provides mass and range parity with existing ICE vehicles, which is critical for large vehicles such as HGVs.”
Viritech contends that to solve the challenge of zero emission vehicles, the key target is for both battery electric vehicle and fuel cell electric vehicle powertrain technologies to improve as quickly as possible. We have consumed the “low hanging fruit” of hydrocarbon fuels refined from oil for over a century and it is absolutely clear that this is the last decade where we will continue to do so. The development of zero emissions vehicles (ZEVs) is vital to maintaining the global economy and is a challenge that requires a complex series of solutions to meet growing global demand.
Timothy Lyons, Viritech’s CEO and Co-Founder said, “Climate change is the critical issue of our times. We’ve got to find the solutions now to some of the most difficult challenges we face in our transition away from fossil fuels.”
Viritech are demonstrating their technologies with the development of a hydrogen Hypercar, the Apricale®, Jovian ® HGV and the SkyWolf helicopter.
About Viritech
Viritech is an advanced cleantech engineering company developing integrated hydrogen powertrains, vehicle control systems, structural graphene pressure vessels and high-performance energy storage to enable hydrogen application in cars, heavy goods vehicles, aerospace, marine and distributed power generation. The company is passionate about advancing technologies to enable and accelerate a post-carbon future. Viritech is located at the MIRA Technology Park in Warwickshire. For more information, please visit www.viritech.co.uk
It’s not batteries or hydrogen, it’s both
For further information, please contact: info@viritech.co.uk
