Table of contents:

The first hydrogen electric bike can travel up to 150 km and recharges in 2 minutes
The first hydrogen electric bike can travel up to 150 km and recharges in 2 minutes

Video: The first hydrogen electric bike can travel up to 150 km and recharges in 2 minutes

Video: The first hydrogen electric bike can travel up to 150 km and recharges in 2 minutes
Video: 150 Kilometers Insane Hydrogen Eflow Bike 2024, March
Anonim

It has become normal that week after week we talk about new models of motorcycles or bicycles with a electric motor that uses the electricity coming from a battery and that go on the market or are about to do so.

However, it is rare to speak of an electric bicycle that uses the hydrogen as a source of energy (in motorcycles we have talked about it). It is just the type of fuel used by the bicycle we are talking about in this article: the Alpha 2.0.

Hydrogen's biggest problem: there are few places to recharge

Hydrogen Alpha 2 Bicycle
Hydrogen Alpha 2 Bicycle

Pragma Industries is a company that is dedicated to developing mobility solutions based on the hydrogen fuel cell. This consists of a small chemical plant where, explained roughly, oxygen and hydrogen react and as a consequence electricity is produced, which is what feeds an electric motor. In this article you have more information about hydrogen.

The Alpha 2.0 electric bicycle, according to Pragma, is the first on the market that uses the fuel cell as an energy resource, which means that it avoids one of the main burdens that an electric vehicle has, which is the battery charging time. However, the fuel cell has another difficulty: Where to find a hydrogeneration?

To give us an idea, Spain will have only 20 stations of this type in 2020. It is ironic that hydrogen being one of the most abundant elements on Earth, this type of fuel is not yet normalized. Perhaps because it is not so easy: hydrogen has to be extracted from water and this process involves an industrial process that requires a lot of energy.

We first read about this Alpha bike with a Brose 250W 35V engine was in 2004 when Pragma announced that its hydrogen bike would have a range of 100 kilometers. Now they have managed to increase it to 150 kilometers. The company compares this with that of the 50 kilometer range of an average electric bike with a 360 Wh battery. They also explain that while other pedal-assisted bikes are affected by the change in temperatures, the Alpha2.0 is not.

The main strong point of this pedaling assistance bike up to 25 km / h is that you can fill your two-liter tank as compressed hydrogen gas in just two minutes compared to 240 min for an electric bike that uses a 360 Wh capacity lithium-ion battery (we assume that with a normal charge). However, we remember that its disadvantage is that there are almost no places to recharge hydrogen.

That is why Pragma has developed a station to produce hydrogen called HyRiS. We don't know what the price is although we intuit that it will not be cheap if we want to have it at home. In fact, the idea of the company is that its use is as a public service or for companies.

Up to 200 of these bicycles will be unveiled from August 16 to 28 at the G7 summit that will take place in Biarritz (France) where journalists attending the event will be able to use them. We are waiting for you to confirm when they will arrive in Spain as well as their price.

Recommended: