The genius of simplicity
By: Dr Peter Wells, Tuesday, June 16, 2009, AutomotiveWorld.com
On 16 June 2009, Riversimple officially launched its new hydrogen-powered car, and with this launch tries to initiate a new era in the history of the automotive industry. Much about the Riversimple Urban Car is new, innovative and intriguing. Both the technologies on the car, and the business model behind it, are a radical break with the past, with the automotive establishment, and with conventional thinking about cars. Yet, one of the key protagonists behind Riversimple could be considered European automotive industry aristocracy, because he is Sebastian Piech – grandson of the legendary Ferdinand Porsche.
Curiously, the car most similar to the Riversimple Urban Car is possibly the Tata Nano. This observation might seem surprising to some. On the one hand, the Riversimple Urban Car is a modern technological miracle combining micro-fuel cell with ultracapacitors, hub motors and a lightweight composite body of just 350kg. It also spearheads a revolutionary business model with the cars leased their entire 20-year life-cycle, with open source design, and with a distributed manufacturing concept. How can this dramatic and cutting edge package compare with the Tata Nano?
The link between the two is engineering minimalism. In both cases, albeit with quite different starting premises, the central philosophy has been frugal engineering. In the case of the Nano, of course, this has meant a conventional design from which all unnecessary adornment has been shorn. In the case of the Riversimple Urban Car it has meant using a tiny fuel cell with ultracapacitors to provide for peak load under acceleration. In the Nano, minimalism means using the least materials, the simplest manufacturing technology, and the least possible complexity, to create the car with the lowest price in the world. In the Urban Car, minimalism means using the least resources of all types (but especially energy) over the lifecycle of the car.
Behind both models are dynastic families with the resources to challenge convention.
Who is to say which will succeed? In the measures of success, the two cars are very different. The Nano promises to redefine value for money motoring and bring car ownership to millions for the first time. Success for the Nano will be outputs of a million units per annum. For the Riversimple concept, success means being there in 20 years’ time when the first models come back to be re-manufactured. Indeed, in the Riversimple ideal of success, in the long term new car manufacturing actually stops.
For Hugo Spowers, the creative force behind Riversimple, the task now is to tie his clever new model in with a local hydrogen refuelling infrastructure. This may sound daunting, but there are enough ambitious and imaginative city authorities to get this concept moving – the success of Project Better Place being an obvious comparison. The beauty of the concept is that massive production volumes are precisely not needed. For the mainstream industry it may seem a sideshow, a trivial moment. But Riversimple could portend death by a million cuts. The days of baroque engineering are over: the future is simple.
Dr Peter Wells is a Reader at Cardiff Business School, where he is a Co-Director of the Centre for Automotive Industry Research and leads the automotive industry research programme within BRASS, also in Cardiff University. Dr Wells is also a director of AutomotiveWorld.com's sister website AWPresenter.com. He can be contacted on wellspe@cardiff.ac.uk.
The opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Automotive World Ltd.
Published on Tuesday, June 16, 2009
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