GENEVA MOTOR SHOW: Near-production nanoFLOWCELL Quantino ready

Lichtenstein-based car-maker, nanoFLOWCELL has announced that it will reveal an updated version of its Quantino concept at next month’s Geneva motor show that’s said to be close to production.

Claimed to have passed all pre-production tests, the two-door coupe made quite an impact at last year’s Swiss motor show because, instead of the usual lithium-ion cells, the radical pure-electric vehicle was powered by two electrolytic fuel tanks -- one with filled with a positively charged solution, the other a negatively charged fluid.

Together, it’s claimed the two tanks provide enough electricity to give a range of almost 1000km.

The flow cell technology works by splitting the two charge fluids with a membrane. While the positive ions flow through one side of the separating membrane the negative ions flow through the other side. This effect allows for an ion exchange and this process generates an electric current.

Instead of then ‘recharging’ the fluid like a conventional battery, the Quantino’s water-based solution that contain the ions evaporates.

The beauty, says the car-maker, is that the two tanks can be refilled with new ionic solutions in a fraction of the time it would take to recharge a conventional battery.

The other advantage, compared to a lithium battery, is both positive and negative ionic solutions are non-flammable, non-toxic, produce no nasty emissions and are not stored at high pressure.

Another boon of the flow cell technology is any servo could provide the fluids needed to fill up the Quantino fuel tanks, meaning it doesn’t need the costly infrastructure required for hydrogen fuel cells, or even pure-electric vehicles.

Last year’s concept came equipped with four 25kW motors that powered each wheel and helped the small coupe reach a top speed of over 200km/h.

According to nanoFLOWCELL the fledgling car-maker will use this year’s Geneva show to study the feasibility of a car like the Quantino. If the reaction of buyers is positive the small flow cell-powered coupe could enter production as soon as later this year.