Riversimple’s hydrogen car gets a boost from Siemens

The electronics giant is accelerating the vehicle’s progress with engineers and digital tools.

Siemens’ engineers and digital tools will be applied to the acceleration of the development of Riversimple’s hydrogen car.

The goal is to create the most sustainable auto factory the world has ever seen.

The factory will produce the Riversimple hydrogen car. That said, the companies are aiming to make the facility itself, not just the product, the most sustainable in the world. Siemens applied its engineers and digital tools to help accelerate the process.

Get things started, Siemens held a 48-hour virtual hackathon, leveraging its digital tools and its engineering talent to create an optimized design for the production facility. The goal is to begin construction of the plant as soon as possible so that it will open in Wales in 2024.

Siemens provided this virtual leap forward for the Riversimple facility, resulting in a factory layout redesign for the assembly, the levels of automation, for the number of production staff, and for the shifts required to make 24/7production possible with maximum energy efficiency.

The Siemens PLM software Plant Simulation was used for the hydrogen car facility design.

They used it as a central tool to help with modeling, simulating, analyzing, visualizing, and optimizing production systems and processes. This included the flow of materials and logistic operations.

The result of the engineers’ effort was to be able to shrink the originally proposed 150,000 square foot plant by a substantial 20 percent. Furthermore, they sped up Riversimple’s plans to launch full production of its Rasa hydrogen electric vehicle within the next three years. The Powys-based company intends to begin production with a 5,000 units per year capacity.

“When we announced our long-term strategic partnership with Siemens at the start of the year, we were optimistic of the possibilities that our collaboration could bring in terms of supporting our preparations for full-scale manufacture,” said Riversimple Financial Director Chris Foxall. “Through the innovative work of the hackathon and leveraging Siemens’ expertise in technology software and plant simulation, driven by its engineering talent, we have been able to reduce the size of the proposed factory by 20%, saving significant cost from the outset, and supporting our ambitions for environmental sustainability.”

Foxall was more than pleased with the results of the partnership as Riversimple continues to move forward toward its hydrogen car production.