Electric bicycles continue to shape the way people move around in the urban setting. And while there have been a few hurdles surrounding their adoption—i.e., fire risks and safety hazards—so it’s clear that manufacturers stand to gain if they push the bounds of what an e-bike is capable of.
Case in point: these new hydrogen-powered electric bicycles from Swiss startup HydroRide.
Sure, hydrogen-powered e-bikes aren’t exactly a brand-new concept, but HydroRide takes things a step further. It allows you to produce your own hydrogen fuel.
How, you may ask? Well, HydroRide has a compact hydrogen generator that you can use at home or in the office. It can produce 20 grams of hydrogen from 200 milliliters of purified water. This takes some time, though—around six hours, to be specific. But hey, the thing can even be powered by solar panels instead of relying on the grid to produce hydrogen.
Once the machine has produced the hydrogen, it stores it in a 9.8-inch tall bottle-like container which is then slotted into the bicycle's frame. Equipped with a 550-watt fuel cell, HydroRide’s bikes are said to offer around 60 kilometers—that’s 37 miles—of range per bottle.
And once the fuel cell is depleted, it’s just a matter of popping a new bottle in, something that takes less than 10 seconds. Of course, you’ll need to have hydrogen fuel in supply, so you’ll need to plan your hydrogen production accordingly.
But what if you don’t want to go through the hassle of making your own hydrogen at home? Well, according to HydroRide, it plans to set up a network of container-swap stations in the near future—think Gogoro’s battery-swapping stations. Here, riders can simply deposit their depleted hydrogen bottles and swap them for fresh ones and go on their way.
At present, HydroRide’s lineup of bikes consists of a low-step commuter bike, a standard commuter bike, and a handy folding model for convenient storage. Each bike is powered by a rear hub motor capable of propelling the bike to a top speed of 14 miles per hour.
So yes, HydroRide’s e-bikes aren’t that much different from regular off-the-shelf e-bikes in terms of specs and features. But the way they produce power and the way they source their power certainly are.
