MIT’s Electric Vehicles team has a long track record of building innovative electric vehicles, both cars and motorcycles, and competing at the international professional level, and this year they’re trying something very different: The team is building a hydrogen-powered An electric motorcycle, using a fuel cell system, serves as a test bed for new hydrogen-based transportation.
The motorcycle successfully conducted its first full test track demonstration in October. It’s designed as an open source platform that should make it possible to replace and test a variety of different components, and allow others to try their own versions based on plans the team makes available for free online.
The project is spearheaded by Aditya Mehrotra, a graduate student working with mechanical engineering professor Alex Slocum, the Walter M. May and A. Hazel May Chair in Emerging Technologies. Mehrotra, who is researching energy systems and happens to be very fond of motorcycles, said, “So we came up with the idea of a hydrogen-powered bike. We did an evaluation study and we thought it could actually work. We [decided to] Try to build it. “
Team members say that while battery-powered vehicles are good for the environment, they still face range limitations and there are issues related to lithium mining and the resulting emissions. Therefore, the team is interested in exploring hydrogen-powered vehicles as a clean alternative, allowing vehicles to be refueled as quickly as gasoline-powered vehicles.
Unlike past projects by the team, which has been part of MIT since 2005, the vehicle will not compete or compete but will be displayed at various conferences. The team, composed of about a dozen students, has been working on building the prototype since January 2023. In October they showed off the bike at the Hydrogen Summit of the Americas, and in May they’re heading to the Netherlands to show it off at the World Hydrogen Summit. In addition to the two hydrogen summits, the team plans to showcase its bike at this month’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
“We hope to use this project as an opportunity to start a conversation around ‘small hydrogen’ systems, which could increase demand, leading to the development of more infrastructure,” Mehrotra said. “We hope this project will help find new and creative applications of hydrogen.” He added that in addition to these demonstrations and the online information the team will provide, they are also working to publish papers in academic journals describing their projects and the lessons learned from them, hoping to ” impact on the energy industry.”
This motorcycle took shape bit by bit over the course of a year. “We have several industry sponsors who donated components such as the fuel cells and many of the major components of the system,” he said. They also received support from the MIT Energy Initiative, the Departments of Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Computer Science, and the MIT Edgerton Center.
Initial testing was conducted on a dynamometer, which Mehrotra described as “basically a simulated road.” The vehicle was powered by batteries during development until fuel cells supplied by South Korea’s Doosan Corporation were delivered and installed. The space the team uses to design and build prototypes (home of the electric vehicle team) is located in Building N51 at MIT and is primed to test each component of the bike in detail as it is developed and integrated.
Elizabeth Brennan, a senior majoring in mechanical engineering, said she joined the team in January 2023 because she wanted to gain more electrical engineering experience, “and I just really fell in love with it.” She said, The panelists “really care, are excited to be here, work on this bike, and feel confident in the project.”
Brennan, the team’s safety director, has been learning about the safe handling required for hydrogen fuel on bikes, including the special tanks and connectors required. The team initially used a commercial electric motor as a prototype but is now developing an improved version, designing it from the ground up, she said, “which gives us more flexibility.”
As part of the project, team members are developing a textbook that describes what they do and how they performed each step in the process of designing and building this hydrogen fuel cell bike. Although some prototypes have been built, the motorcycle does not yet exist as a commercial product.
Brennan said guidance on such a process “just doesn’t exist.” She added, “Many hydrogen technology developments are either done in simulations or are still in the prototype stage because development costs are high and it is difficult to test such systems.” One of the team’s project goals is to bring everything together Offered as an open source design, “we hope to use this bike as a platform for researchers and education, where researchers can test ideas in an environment where space and funding are limited”.
Mehrotra said that unlike the design of commercial products, “our vehicles are designed entirely for research, so you can swap out components and get real hardware data on how good your design is.” This could help people, he said implement their new design ideas and help move the industry forward.
He said the few prototypes some companies had previously developed were inefficient and expensive. “To our knowledge, we are the first fully open source, rigorously documented, tested and released platform, [fuel cell] Motorcycles of the world. No one else has built a motorcycle and tested it to the level that we have and documented that someone might actually be able to take it and expand on it in the future, or use it for research. “
He added, “Currently, the vehicle is affordable for research but not for commercial production because the fuel cell is a very large, expensive component.” Doosan, which supplies the fuel cell for the prototype bike Fuel cell companies produce relatively small and lightweight fuel cells, primarily for use in drones. The company also produces hydrogen storage and delivery systems.
Team member Annika Marschner, a sophomore mechanical engineering student, said the project will continue to grow. “It’s an ongoing thing and hopefully it will continue to grow over the next few years as we develop it and make changes to make it a stronger, better bike,” she said.
While the electric vehicle team has so far focused on battery-powered vehicles, Marschner said: “Now we are looking at hydrogen because it seems to be less explored than other sustainable transportation technologies. So for us , it seemed like an exciting thing to put the time and effort into.”
Making this work was a long process. Using the frame from a 1999 motorcycle, the team added a number of custom parts to support the electric motor, hydrogen tank, fuel cell and drivetrain. “Getting everything to fit into the frame of the bike was definitely something we had to think about a lot because space is so limited there. So trying to figure out how to fit things in a smart way so they don’t conflict,” she said.
“A lot of people don’t really imagine hydrogen being used on the road, but the technology does exist,” Marshner said. Toyota and Hyundai both have hydrogen-fueled vehicles on the market, and a number of hydrogen fueling stations exist, she noted. Mainly located in California, Japan and some European countries. But “for the average consumer on the East Coast, getting hydrogen is a huge challenge. Infrastructure is definitely the biggest challenge for hydrogen-powered vehicles right now,” she said.
She sees hydrogen as having a bright future as a clean fuel that will replace fossil fuels over time. “I think it has huge potential,” she said. “I think one of the biggest challenges in advancing hydrogen is getting these demonstration projects to actually develop and prove that these things can work, and can work well. So we’re very excited to be able to advance it further.”