One small company is set to revolutionise the way we use cars.

They have created a small hydrogen-fuel run car, but have created a unique business model that makes motoring more sustainable and eco-friendly too.

If you can’t join them, beat them, that’s the policy of Riversimple cars, which has plans that turn the car industry on its head. The company has created a hydrogen city car with a range of 380km and top speed of 80kph. But it’s not just the car that’s exciting, it’s the entire business model.

It was while studying for his MBA that former racing driver Hugo Spowers realised that to make motoring truly sustainable, you had to start entirely from scratch. “The barriers weren’t technical, they were all to do with people and politics and business,” he says.

“We think we’re much closer to commercial viability for a fuel cell car than any other car company in the world,” explains Spowers. “We designed the car for a fuel cell, so we need much less power, and at the same time we’ve designed a business model that suits the sort of cars that we make, which will have a very long life. And at the same time, governmental policy is driving us towards reducing resource consumption.”

The cars are designed for ‘local’ use, and leased out in an area that is serviced by one local fuelling station, which means that Riversimple doesn’t have to rely on a huge infrastructure for fuelling. “There are plenty of people who want a car but won’t go beyond a 40km radius, we’ve got a range of 380km, that’s more than a week’s use of fuel, so you’ve only got to have access to a hub once a week.” The company can expand in increments, until they have the skeleton of a nationwide network and can launch an intercity car.

Riversimple cars will be leased for a monthly fee that includes fuel, a bit like a mobile phone tariff, so it’s in the company’s interest to give the cars a long – and eco-friendly - life.

Spowers is sceptical of the car industry’s plans for hydrogen. “The whole hydrogen strategy in Europe and California we think is not a commercialisation strategy at all,” he says. “The reason we’re piloting in the UK is because nothing’s happening here so it makes it much easier to implement our strategy. We just wouldn’t have a chance in Europe.”

Riversimple is setting new standards, which is why their technology is open source, with a view to building a market – they say their service will set them apart.

The plan is to produce 50-60 by 2012, and Spowers says they can break even by producing just 2,000 a year. They’re being taken seriously: their key investor is from the family that founded Porsche, the council of the British city of Leicester has signed up for a pilot scheme and another deal is about to be agreed. Their latest coup is encouraging; they’ve just taken on car designer Chris Reitz, who designed the new Fiat 500.

They’re feeling positive. “As long as 1% of the market likes what we are doing – which is far more than we can possibly service – it doesn’t matter if 99% don’t like it.”