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Visit to MATERI'ACT/ SYMBIO/ Musee MALARTRE, Lyon, 10/2024

  • Apr 22
  • 3 min read

Updated: May 14



21 FOR’EVER participants from France and Spain.

 

MATERIACT.

  • Enclosed you will find a generic presentation of this newly created division 4 years ago developing and selling new materials contributing to the CO2 reduction FORVIA program. See details inside it.

  • My additional notes to the presentation:

    • 60% of CO2 creation are driven by plastic materials extracted from oil.

    • To reduce this impact, a solution is

      • First to use recycled materials

      • Second to introduce bio-sourced material as an alternative, mainly HEMP

      • With the MOTO;  “LESS/ BETTER/ LONGER”

    • Many carmakers Renault/ Volvo/ Tesla…. Abandoned real leather and are proposing Vegan one i.e.…. Plastic ! Leather CO2 footprint is 15 times bigger than plastic, because of the cow… and the tanning process.

    • FIS created a joint venture 10 years ago with a cooperative farm to produce hemp and process it with plastic within Dijon area. FOR’EVER will organize a visit there in September next year during harvesting time.

    • Cost model and overpricing are still issues to be compensated by better usage.

    • Materi’Act is located in a brand new place in the heart of Lyon universities and research center

 



 



SYMBIO:





  • Sorry for the presentation in French…

  • Symbio is a Michelin (origin of the project: Michelin set up an innovation center close to Zürich to develop a car of the future from scratch. Part of the project they decided to design an Hydrogen fuel cell)/ FORVIA/ STELLANTIS JV developing and producing hydrogen fuel cells.

  • To make a long story short excluding arguing…

    • H2 is the only solution for electrical vehicles with a real autonomy more than 250 kms 

    • H2 is the only way for massive storage of energy and transport (standard gas pipeline are suitable, same for tankers)

    • Green H2 can be produced free when bio electricity production exceed demands (high winds, sun, nuclear power..)

    • Big risk for deployment is the availability of refill stations therefore limiting drastically H2 for domestic cars. Toyota and Hyundai current worldwide production if with 5 to 10k a year

    • Economical model cannot fly without big state subventions especially for developing technologies and infrastructure. Symbio have already and will get 670M€ from various agencies

    • According to Symbio (a surprise for me) the next big future constraints for battery electrical vehicles will be the electricity network not capable to feed refill stations. Totally true in the USA.

  • Symbio decided to focus first on big private light commercial vehicles fleets back home every day with a local Hydrogen refill station Target 10k vehicles a year. They are in the production ramp up for a Stellantis vehicle presented to the market in 2025

  • A race car is sponsored by Symbio and powered by the fuel cell.

  • Symbio is located in Lyon the “Rhone Alpes” region is very active and supportive for H2 with available engineers, R&D and infrastructure.

  • Symbio is currently in generation 3 of his product going from 40 kw to 75kw to 150kw within the same space volume.

  • An electrical fuel cell is a cube around same size as a 4 cylinder combustion engine. Apart the stacking of piles for the electrodes, a turbo compressor compress the air.

  • H2 consumption is around one kilo per 100 kms from a 700 bars tank, yield is 51%, target is 60%

  • Life is 8000 hours 300000km.

  • The new plant is a big investment 26000M2 including 7000 for R&D, apart the production area all in white rooms, a green H2 production station and 650 employees

  • The production process assembles very thin fine blanked metal ( produced by a JV with Schaeffler group) stacked with polymer membranes. Very impressive. The visit of the plant is virtual… from videos on screens

 



 

Diner in a « Bouchon Lyonnais :




 


 

AUMOBILE MUSEUM MALARTRE :

 

Private collection of M Malartre now owned by the city of Lyon.

 




 

For sure, anything I missed to report, that you consider important, please share !

 

Overall, everything went well wit a combination of high and old technology with full conviviality 😊 and we have to thank deep again for the very nice and professional welcome of SYMBIO and MATERIACT

 

Next year please book September for the HEMP farm within Dijon Area the capital of Burgundy 😊😊😊

 

Cordialement, le secrétaire de For’ever

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