The ENV bike, designed by leading product designers Seymourpowell, was first launched by British energy know-how company Intelligent Energy at London’s Design Museum on March 15th 2005. The bike has received a hugely positive response both from the British and the international media to date. Britain’s leading motorbike publication, MotorCycleNews, said, for example ‘this could be the most important new motorcycle ever’, whilst national newspaper The Daily Telegraph called it ‘the future of urban biking’ and The Daily Mirror added ‘the only way to get more environmentally-friendly than this is to walk.’ The appearance of the bikes in Monaco is the first time they have been seen outside of the UK

The British government also heralded ENV’s launch, with Tony Blair’s Energy Minister, Mike O’Brien MP, sending this message: ‘I congratulate Intelligent Energy on their fantastic achievement in building the world’s first fuel cell motorbike. This is an important development in the designing and production of vehicles that do not emit carbon. This is truly a British success story of which Intelligent Energy and Seymourpowell can be justly proud and paves the way for further innovation in this exciting and important area.’

In the worldwide rush by the biggest names in the automotive and bike industry to bring hydrogen-powered vehicles to market, the hastily-assembled handful of prototypes and public launches to date have mostly (with the exception of Honda’s recent fuel-cell scooter) paraded existing models, superficially adapted to fuel cell use.

The ENV bike is different. It offers an exhilarating glimpse of what can be achieved: a great-looking and exciting fuel-cell motorbike. ‘In the none-toodistant future’, commented Intelligent Energy CEO Harry Bradbury, ‘people will be able to use a bike like ENV to leave work in an urban environment, drive to the countryside, detach the CORE and attach it to another vehicle, such as a motorboat, before going on to power a log cabin with the very same fuel cell, which could then be re-charged from a mini hydrogen creator, the size of a shoebox.’

Intelligent Energy, with an expanding suite of technology platforms, is capable of producing every element of this scenario and is currently working on just such a hydrogen-creator, which will be able to produce hydrogen from future fuels such as bio-ethanol (derived, for example, from soya or sugar cane), offering consumers a tantalising vision of complete electrical self-sustainability. This vision is particularly compelling for remote communities and especially for the developing world, where large grids are simply not economically viable and where fuel cells offer both easy portability and power delivery at the point of consumption with no loss of efficiency.

The ENV bike

ENV is lightweight, streamlined and aerodynamic. It boasts a performance that outreaches any existing electrical bike. In an urban or off-road environment, it can reach speeds of 50 mph. It is also virtually silent (with noise emissions equivalent to an everyday home computer) and its emissions are almost completely clean. On a full tank, the ENV bike could be used continually for up to four hours without any need for re-fuelling. The bike can also be used by riders of any skill level with simple controls, via a throttle directly linked to the applied power. The bike has no gears and is strictly defined as a motorbike, although it feels to riders more like a very quick and responsive mountain bike. ‘ENV is light, fast and fun’, commented

Measure bar IE_SIG_4COL_HR_™.eps Minimum clear space area Seymourpowell director Nick Talbot. ‘It has good ground clearance, great off-road suspension travel and a very carefully considered power to weight ratio. I have ridden motorbikes for years’, he added, ‘ and, in the process of designing the bike, I have become a convert to fuel cell technology. The bike is usable, useful and great-looking. It was important on this project to demonstrate that new technologies don’t have to be wrapped up in a dull product - engaging public imagination and enthusiasm is key.’

ENV has been produced in two monochromatic colourways: black supergloss and iridescent white. ‘This was to express the bike’s parallel natures’, explained Nick Talbot. ‘On the one hand, it expresses a utopian future vision of ‘clean power, anywhere’ - and on the other, it’s an exciting, hard-edged bike and fun to ride.’

The bike’s primary frame and swinging arm are made from hollow-cast aircraft grade aluminium. At the bike’s heart is a fully-integrated 1kW fuel cell generator providing power on demand directly to the drive-train. To enhance performance during peak power demand (ie when accelerating), the fuel cell is hybridised with a battery pack to provide a 6kW peak load to the motor. The result is a balanced hybrid concept which combines the main advantages of Intelligent Energy’s CORE fuel cell, hydrogen storage and battery technology.

‘With all the depressing news about climate change and geo-political unrest, many people look into the future with a sense of dread, or at best ambivalence,’ commented Seymourpowell co-founder Richard Seymour on the project. ‘Put simply, the future is painted by much of the media as a dark, dysfunctional place. But designers can’t think like that. It’s our job to face the future optimistically and projects like this point the way. Instead of being a ‘worthy compromise’, the ENV is a thrilling, handsome, ecologically-friendly slice of ‘Optimistic Futurism’. I can’t wait to own one myself!

Fuel cell technology and the Intelligent Energy CORE

The Intelligent Energy CORE is a PEM-type fuel cell - one of five different fuel cell types, all of which have different attributes in terms of size, robustness and ability to work at high temperatures. The PEM (or Proton Exchange Measure bar IE_SIG_4COL_HR_™.eps Minimum clear space area Membrane) fuel cell type is the most popular and appropriate type of fuel cell for automotive applications. Simply put, each fuel cell is a multi-layered sandwich of plates and MEAs (Membrane Electrode Assemblies), in which the MEA acts as a catalyst during an electro-chemical reaction, producing water and electricity from hydrogen and oxygen. The water by-product points to the usefulness of the technology in heat and power applications, such as the home. The water by-product can be evaporated, drained or drunk, as it was, for example, by the astronauts of the Apollo missions. NASA were the first real users of fuel cell technology in the 1950s and 60s - a century after its first invention by Welsh lawyer Sir William Grove.

The Intelligent Energy CORE fuel cell is a world beater, both in terms of volumetric power density and low parasitic loss. It uses metal rather than the more common graphite plates, making it easier to manufacture, more robust and, crucially, smaller as metal plates can be made more thinly than graphite plates. This makes the CORE particularly attractive to the automotive industry, where space is always at a premium.

The design of the CORE

‘When it came to designing the casing for the CORE’, commented Seymourpowell’s Nick Talbot, ‘we treated it as a standalone project, giving this radical fuel cell its due as a beautiful, valuable and useful energy resource. The CORE, which can be detached completely from the bike, is therefore designed to create interest as an enigmatic object. Although mostly encased in identical aluminium to the bike, of which it at first seems a completely integral part, the CORE is also part-covered on one plane in a microetched, textured and durable shell, in a pattern derived from brain coral. The pattern alludes to the fact that this is solid state technology - but is also functional, in that the intricate patterns also disperse heat. We wanted this to be a finer and more beautiful object than, say, a diesel generator - and to make people look again at this new technology with a sense of wonder.’

ENV is a complete pre-production prototype motorbike, just as the 50kW powered light aircraft, developed by Intelligent Energy for partner Boeing was similarly a complete prototype in 2004. Both vehicles demonstrate that Measure bar IE_SIG_4COL_HR_™.eps Minimum clear space area Intelligent Energy’s advanced fuel cells are completely ready for application to real vehicles in the here and now - as well as many exciting new vehicles in the future. Two- and four-wheeled vehicles using 5kW and 10kW power are realistic next-step developments, for example, whilst Intelligent Energy’s new 75kW fuel cell is the most compact cell around currently and the only one capable of starting in freezing conditions with no assistance.

‘The launch of ENV breaks new ground and opens up a whole new field of opportunities for low- and high-power fuel cell motorbikes,’ commented Harry Bradbury. ‘ENV and its successors are good for the consumer and the environment. This is a fun vehicle with a realistic role to play in the leisure environment, as well as a role in emissions reduction from Boston to Bangkok. There has been much talk about low-carbon emission vehicles. Here is one at last.’