This is not a car intended for street-use. It’s a race car, we’ll see it this week-end at the Shell Eco-marathon in Germany. Very popular among engineering students, the Eco-marathon is a challenge with the goal to travel the longest distance with the less energy. Most vehicles participating would not be considered as cars. Some are barely 15-inches high, with a jockey-sized student lying beneath the carbon-fiber body. The Nios vehicle, from team Hydrokultur is not like this!
A big difference is that with the engineering students, some art students got involved in the project, with the result being a vehicle that you could imagine in the streets, if it could meet road safety regulations. The Nios is an electric vehicle without a heavy battery, it has a small fuel cell running on hydrogen instead. The whole vehicle, a two-seater, weighs 353-pounds.