Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms What next Morgan?

It is great to here that Morgan has made record profits, bought the factory and all its 8 cylinder cars are sold out but it seems strange that there is no hints of the future.
The engines in the 4/4 and +4 are out of step with the current turbocharged engines so future sourcing could be problem. The +8 and aeros at Geneva are end of line. The 3 wheelers look to be settled in the power plant but there is no talk of the return of a 4 seater. Morgan must be looking to the future so why no indication of the future developments? It is not as if a rival is going to steal Morgan's thunder.

Morgan could consider being a little more adventurous and consider cars powered by hydrogen as this is derived from electrolysis at the petrol station forecourt and very recently shell have installed a very first hydrogen cell pump, much more efficient than batteries (which have a limited life and range) and a combustion engine is still used but no harmful gases produced HOW ABOUT IT MORGAN ?

The problem with both electric cars and hydrogen cars is that assuming there is no great change in renewable's technology and that the electricity is produced mainly from Hydrocarbons or Nuclear plants that have long term storage of spent fuel problems.

Both types of technology need electrical power to either charge the batteries or produce the hydrogen and in a lot of cases you are removing the pollution from cities to the countryside as the pollution from power stations has to land somewhere.

Designs have been leaked

How about a more German Engeneers approach and make the Morgan cars more reliable? Morgan could spend more than a year‘s profit improving quality to Toyota standards.

Probably the most sensible thing I have ever seen posted on TM and most unlikely to happen.

The advantages of hydrogen fuel cells over internal combustion engines and battery-electric motors as vehicular propulsion include emissions, range and charging time. The hydrogen fuel cell car emits only pure water at the tailpipe, which is clean enough to drink and therefore does not contribute to local pollution. It only takes a minute or two to fill the tank of a hydrogen car, putting it broadly in line with a petrol or diesel car, and the range from this charge will be several hundred kilometres – something that could take hours for a battery-electric car to achieve.

Morgan under the leadership of Steve Morris might surprise us???

If I can get hold of a Morgan Chassis I'll fit a hydrogen cell power plant and do the development !!!

Electric to generate the hydrogen will come from solar / wind and can be generated at night and stored ready for those who 'fill up'

The problem with using hydrogen as a combusted fuel ,as BMW discovered, is its energy density. To get sufficient volume and therefore range the hydrogen tank has to be at cryogenic temperatures, and the insulation surrounding said tank to maintain that temperature is a very large volume. Also, as hydrogen is a tiny atom, it can leach past many seals and even directly through many materials.

Apparently the BMW X5 prototype had no boot space due to the insulation required and would completely empty its tank over the period of a few days even if unused...

We also currently have a liquid fuel delivery infrastructure across the world- the cost to convert to a gaseous system has been estimated in the trillions of dollars

What we need is a renewable liquid fuel and significant investment it atmospheric processing, the Fischer Tropsch process could be used to "recycle" atmospheric carbon dioxide into a hydrocarbon fuel.

Electric cars still have an issue with cradle to grave emissions and recyclability, as the energy put into manufacturing and finally disposing of them outweighs the emissions benefits

All the above is not just conjecture, its derived from a technical paper written by a friend of mine whilst working as a consultant to Lotus, I'll see if I can find a copy to post up

Simon @ SiFab.co.uk