German Federal Research Minister Anja Karliczek has revealed that German engineers have created an automotive Frankenstein: A Tesla Model Y that has been converted into a hydrogen vehicle that she called a “hyper hybrid.”
The objective was to show what the future is capable of and the work of remodeling a Tesla is a little perplexing as it is not a conventional fuel car. It is not confirmed if the company, Tesla was involved in the process to make it function on synthetic methanol. According to Teslarati, the cost of the project was around $10 million. However, Elon musk does not support hydrogen fuel cell technology much.
During a public spat in the past year with Trevor Milton, the now-disgraced CEO of the hydrogen automaker Nikola Motors, Musk referred to hydrogen fuel cells as “fool cells” and called the technology “staggeringly dumb.”
The practical “hyper hybrid” Tesla was supposed to exhibit the concepts behind hydrogen fuel not just function as a vehicle that was ready to be on the streets. The Carbon2Chem initiative has the aim to decarbonize the steel industry. It made the car in a way that could depict innovative ways of preserving energy and recycling fuel. All of this was reported in Teslarati.
“Today we are building a very interesting bridge between these two points: The use of methanol from ‘recycled’ CO2 from the industry as a fuel in road transport,” Karliczek said at the Wednesday announcement. “But the methanol car itself is also an ‘innovation showcase’ for low-emission, resource- and energy-efficient mobility of tomorrow.”