Hydrogen car runs nearly 2,500 km without refueling

Netherlands TU Delft University's Eco-Runner XIII hydrogen car travels 2,488.45 km/h on just one tank of hydrogen fuel.

A group of students from TU Delft University introduced the latest prototype of the Eco-Runner hydrogen-powered small car, Eco-Runner XIII, in May 2023. The car set a Guinness World Record for the distance traveled in just one month, New Atlas reported on July 3. The Eco-Runner is designed to be 100 times more fuel-efficient than modern fossil-fuel cars.

The development team chose the Immendingen test track in Germany to set the record. The test took place on June 22. The next day, at 4 a.m., the vehicle started its lap, traveling at 45 km/h, nearly double the speed of last year's prototype. The previous record of 2,056 km was broken on June 25, but there was still fuel in the tank, so the Eco-Runner continued driving. The vehicle stopped at 8:26 a.m. local time on June 26, reaching 2,488.45 km/h with 950 grams of hydrogen, setting a Guinness World Record for "the greatest distance traveled by a vehicle with a full tank of hydrogen."

Like TU Delft’s impressive Solar Electric Car, the Eco-Runner is an annual collaboration between students from various faculties. It began in 2005 with the three-wheeled Eco 1, which finished in the top five of the 2006 Shell Eco-marathon and achieved 557 km/l of fuel.

The next bullet version switched to a hydrogen fuel source, where hydrogen was piped from the storage tank to a fuel cell for an electrochemical reaction that produced electricity with the only waste being water. This model achieved an efficiency equivalent to 2,282 km/l of gasoline and set a record in the Netherlands.

The designs continued to improve until the first urban vehicle concept was born in 2020, still possessing 3 wheels but significantly shortening the vehicle length. The later version added a 4th wheel and ran continuously for 36 hours on a hydrogen tank for a distance of 1,195.74 km. The design team last year won first place in the Hydrogen Efficiency Challenge.

The redesign focused on setting a new distance record. The development team of 24 students now built a stronger Eco-Runner XIII with a more aerodynamic shape and weight-saving construction.

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