It could be the ultimate auto answer to the whole quest for an eco-friendly alternative-energy vehicle - a low-cost hydrogen-powered car that comes complete with its very own solar-powered hydrogen refueling station. Seriously. You can buy one now. For a measly $80. Not $80,000, just eighty bucks. Only problem: It’s tiny, measuring just 16 centimeters long. The H-Racer is the world’s smallest hydrogen car, a rather cool eco-friendly toy that can also be a teaching tool to teach kids the advantages of hydrogen power - it’s non-toxic, renewable, clean to use, and requires the most abundant element in the world.
The zero-emission H-Racer was developed by Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies, a company founded in 2003 with this goal: “to greatly accelerate the global commercialization of clean, hydrogen fuel cell power.”
The toy car is a working miniature version of the same technology being developed for full-size cars. The company website describes how it came to create the toy-sized working hydrogen fuel-cell car:
One day as we as were looking for a way to demonstrate a new micro-size thin-film fuel cell technology, we found a toy car lying around the office. We took it apart and integrated our fuel cell system to power its small electric motor. Looking at this small toy car powered by a miniature hydrogen fuel cell system, we thought: “why not miniaturize the future of transportation, by miniaturizing the entire system and making it a fun and tangible product today!” A few months later the result was, the first fully sustainable toy car (it does not have any batteries), and also the first refuelable toy car, using a small hydrogen refueling station that can power itself using a miniature solar panel.
The solar-power-created hydrogen fuel powers the toy car to travel about 100 meters on a straightaway.
In July 2007, Horizon announced a deal with Hong Kong’s Wah Shing Toys Co., Ltd., one of the world’s largest toy manufacturers to design and mass-produce environmentally friendly, fuel cell-powered toys and reusable energy
storage devices. Wah Shing will scale up manufacturing of Horizon’s existing line of tech-toy products, with the aim of developing new fuel cell-powered products for major nternational toy companies.
The H-racer was named a “Best Invention” in 2006 by Time magazine, and more recently was named one of the “coolest new products n the planet” by Business 2.0 magazine.
Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies is based in Singapore.
