March 2007

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DETROIT, MI - “Gentlemen, switch on your fuel cells!” could conceivably be the starting command for the first fuel cell race car competition that a new group here hopes to start two years from now with an Indianapolis-type race.

Last month, the Hydrogen Electric Racing Federation (HERF), released its first set of specifications for fuel cell racers, plus a snazzy conceptual rendering of what a fuel cell competition vehicle might look like. The new group and its basic aims were announced in January (H&FCL Feb. 07).

The HERF racers would be roughly similar in size but no bigger than current sports car prototype racing vehicles, with wheels enclosed.

The minimum weight would be 900 kg; the vehicle’s construction and components such as suspension, steering, brakes and controls would be up to each manufacturer; aerodynamic devices such as spoilers, would be allowed but must not be movable or touch the ground; minimum power would be 300 kW/400 hp; a maximum of 8 kg of hydrogen would be stored on board as 10,000 psi compressed gas; two sets of tire size packages, one for oval tracks such as Indianapolis and another for road-racing circuits; and hydrogen fuel would be supplied by one manufacturer to HERF specifications from, interestingly, renewable sources.

The projected lap speed at, for example, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway would be 185 miles/hour-plus.

"We have developed a set of specifications for the HERF racers that will limit expenditures for the participating manufacturers,” said the federations president and CEO Peter M. DeLorenzo in a release. He added, “our intent is not to strangle ingenuity but to encourage it. Each manufacturer will be free to express their individual creativity and innovative ideas any way they see fit......We feel this element of ‘blue sky’ thinking will be a crucial component to the appeal of the HERF racing machines.”

DeLorenzo thinks encouraging fuel cell competition is a way of enabling “racing to take its rightful place again as the principal conduit for the transference of advanced technologies and innovations directly to future production vehicles.

"The onset of the electrification of the automobile is presenting us with a rare, perhaps once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to accelerate the development schedule of the hydrogen electric fuel cell-powered vehicle while at the same time allowing us to reinvent and reposition the sport of racing to be more relevant than it has been for decades.”

HERF said the first competition is scheduled for May 2009 with the “Hydrogen 500,” analogous to the venerable “Indianapolis 500.” Other races, including international events, are planned for 2010 and 2011.

Last year, TÜV S d, A German technical services and testing organization, presented a paper at a May conference in Munich, “Mobile with Hydrogen,” which made the case for competition to advance the state of the art of transportation with hydrogen racing, both with fuel cells and with advanced internal combustion engines. A report on the TÜV paper was carried May 2 in a German online car enthusiasts’ magazine, “Autosieger.de,” (http://www.autosieger.de/
article9461.html).

Contact: John Love, EMC PR, 248/816-0106, john@emcpr.com.