Hydrogen vs. Battery-Based Propulsion Systems in Unipersonal Vehicles—Developing Solutions to Improve the Sustainability of Urban Mobility

F Isorna Llerena,F Segura Manzano,J M Andújar,E López González,J J Caparrós Mancera

doi:10.3390/su13105721

Abstract

The percentage of the population in urban areas has increased by ten points from 2000 (46%) to 2020 (56%); it is expected to reach up to 70% by 2050. This undoubtedly will encourage society to use alternative transports. On the other hand, the widespread fear of pandemics seems to be here to stay, and it is causing most people to leave public transport to use private cars, and a few have chosen unipersonal electric vehicles. As a consequence, the decision of using private cars negatively affects the air quality, and consequently urban population health. This paper aims to demonstrate a sustainable solution for urban mobility based on a hydrogen powered unipersonal electric vehicle, which, as shown, provides great advantages over the conventional battery powered unipersonal electric vehicle. To show this, the authors have developed both vehicles in comparable versions, using the same platform, and ensuring that the total weight of the unipersonal electric vehicle was the same in both cases. They have been subjected to experimental tests that support the features of the hydrogen-based configuration versus the battery-based one, including higher specific energy, more autonomy, and shorter recharge time.

Highlights

For the dynamic dynamic road road test, test, aa real real driving driving test test was applied over the unipersonal electric vehicle in movement
Based and hydrogen-based unipersonal electric vehicles developed in this work have
A test platform was built to establish a comparison between a unipersonal electric vehicle powered only by batteries, and the same one powered by a hybrid system based on hydrogen and batteries

Summary

Introduction

According to the World Data Bank [1], the percentage of urban population has increased by 10 points in the 21st century (in 2000, the urban population was 46%, and in 2020 it reached 56%), and it is expected to reach 70% by 2050. This undoubtedly forces cities to undertake a sustainable transformation of their urban model, and society to use alternative transports. Public transport plays an important role, a recent analysis has quantified a 60% decrease in public ridership due to the COVID-19 pandemic [2]

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