The same direct-drive technology that has been proven to yield considerable energy savings could also benefit smaller vehicles, provided of course that the unit cost could be reduced by economies of scale.

TheWheel™ SM450/1AL has been designed to cater to the increasing demand from the automotive industry and private initiatives.

Cost Challenge:

The cost of the direct-drives will of course represent an important part of the vehicle cost. Other components such as the batteries and other auxiliary systems, however, will likely have a significant impact on the overall cost as well.

Passenger cars, in sharp contrast to public transit or industrial applications, are driven only about 15,000 kilometers per year. Besides, these vehicles are generally speaking reasonably energy efficient. In the near future, it will therefore remain very difficult to achieve a similar positive ecological and financial result as has already been unequivocally demonstrated with both the Whisper™ and the e-Traction-Bus.

Discussions are currently underway about the conversion of a conventional delivery van, which would become equipped with the e-Traction® System using a fuel cell as a generator. The development cost of this government supported initiative will be quite significant. We are of course eager to partake in such endeavors provided we can indeed afford to do so from a financial point of view.

A go-ahead decision for the final development and production of TheWheel™ SM450/1AL system will largely depend on the size of the long term financial commitment the prospective customers are willing to make. The brief availability of certain subsidies certainly might make such innovative endeavors seem artificially commercially attractive. If the final product, however, would remain essentially uncompetitive, the joint technical and financial resources should be deployed in the development of more commercially promising and ecologically beneficial concepts. Our involvement in the small vehicle market segment is, due to the high development and production cost, currently considered unlikely and outside of our area of concentration. Improving the energy efficiency of public transit and utility vehicles, such as garbage trucks, is even at our current high production cost already economically and ecologically viable.

Below is a design study of three Dutch universities of the Car in the Future featuring four dummy TheWheel™ SM450/1AL units powered by a fuel-cell in a proposed All Wheel Drive and All Wheel Steering concept was shown at the 2007 AutoRAI in Amsterdam.

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Last modified: June 12, 2007