The launch of a new hydrogen-powered vehicle could influence jobs in automotive.

The Riversimple Urban car can reach 50mph, a range of 240 miles and produces less CO2 than a hybrid petrol car like Toyota Prius or Honda Insight.

Designs of this vehicle will be “open-source” which means it will be posted on the internet for free.

"We want competitors, even if they're in the UK. We believe that open source is commercially the best thing for us to do, as it will help grow the market for hydrogen technology, from parts to repairs and the re-fuelling infrastructure," said Hugo Spowers, a motorsport engineer and the founder of Riversimple.

"Now that we have the basic vehicle in place with practical technology, the challenge is to begin the development of a fuelling infrastructure to accompany it," added Sebastian Piëch, the financial backer for Riversimple.

The Riversimple runs on hydrogen transformed from natural gas that is situated in a 6kw fuel cell. Hydrogen can be created from water or it could even potentially be made from bio fuels.

These new developments propose that hydrogen automotive technology is ready to go to market now instead of in 10 years.

UK jobs within this field could enjoy a welcomed boost if this proves to be true.

Costing nearly £500,000 to develop the Riversimple car can be leased by you for £200 a month.

With the government’s announcement in April of £5000 grants towards people buying an electric car from 2011, the future of automotive jobs and especially within hybrid technology looks extremely promising.

It would seem that the Riversimple, which will be ready to market by 2013, will benefit most from this.

Although worries surrounding the re-fuelling of these cars are doing the rounds, Hugo Spowers doesn’t seem too concerned by it.
 

"You can incrementally put in a template package of one re-fuelling point and 50 cars in different cities, and each city one by one can build an urban hydrogen infrastructure, and that incrementally builds a nationwide infrastructure," he said.