The British company Viritech plans to launch a hydrogen-powered vehicle by 2023, which will be named Apricale. The company’s goal is to become the world’s leading developer of hydrogen powertrain for the automotive, aerospace, marine and distributed energy industries.
Apricale, named from the Latin word “apricus” means “touched by the sun”, will seek to show the advantages of hydrogen batteries, which should be noted that they need greater long-term energy storage.
For that reason, Viritech says that the batteries will have half the weight of its competitors due to the construction of a new type of hydrogen storage tank made of graphene compound and integrated into the structure of the vehicle.
It is unknown exactly how much the hypercar will cost and also how fast it will be, however Viritech recognizes that the investment is more than 1 million euros and its power of 1,000 boiler horsepower (1,013 horsepower).
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What is known is that the British company will design a car at the MIRA Technology Park in Warwickshire, England. The bad new? Viritech will only be able to build 25 Apricale units starting in 2023, and an average of eight to 12 cars a year.
Other projects
It is worth mentioning that the company is also developing a hydrogen battery truck dubbed Jovian, which is one of the “reference designs” according to Viritech.
Heavy-duty battery-electric vehicles need up to nine tons of batteries, while hydrogen-powered trucks would be “comparable in weight to a diesel heavy-duty truck, with similar refueling times and a longer service life,” Viritech says of what may offer Jovian.
Written by | Gabriel Sayago