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Hydrogen vehicle

A hydrogen vehicle is a vehicle that uses hydrogen to move. Hydrogen vehicles include some road vehicles, rail vehicles, space rockets, forklifts, ships and aircraft. Motive power is generated by converting the chemical energy of hydrogen to mechanical energy, either by reacting hydrogen with oxygen in a fuel cell to power electric motors or, less commonly, by hydrogen internal combustion.

Hydrogen fuels many rockets and burns cleaner than other fuels such as methane, but requires larger tanks. Hydrogen aircraft are not expected to carry many passengers long haul before the 2030s at the earliest.

As of 2019, 98% of hydrogen is produced by steam methane reforming, which emits carbon dioxide. It can be produced by electrolysis of water, or by thermochemical or pyrolytic means using renewable feedstocks, but the processes are currently expensive. Various technologies are being developed that aim to deliver costs low enough, and quantities great enough, to compete with hydrogen production using natural gas.

Vehicles running on hydrogen technology benefit from a long range on a single refuelling, but are subject to several drawbacks: high carbon emissions when hydrogen is produced from natural gas, capital cost burden, high energy inputs in production, low energy content per unit volume at ambient conditions, production and compression of hydrogen, the investment required to build refuelling infrastructure around the world to dispense hydrogen, and transportation of hydrogen. In addition, leaked hydrogen has a global warming effect 11.6 times stronger than CO₂.

For light duty vehicles including passenger cars, hydrogen adoption is behind that of battery electric vehicles. A 2022 study found that technological developments and economies of scale in BEVs, compared with the evolution of the use of hydrogen, have made it unlikely for hydrogen light-duty vehicles to play a significant role in the future. , there are two models of hydrogen cars publicly available in select markets: the Toyota Mirai (2014–), which is the world's first commercially produced dedicated fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV),  and the Hyundai Nexo (2018–). There are also fuel cell buses.

Rationale and context
The rationale for hydrogen vehicles lies in their potential to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, associated greenhouse gas emissions and localised air pollution from transportation. This would require hydrogen to be produced cleanly, for use in sectors and applications where cheaper and more energy efficient mitigation alternatives are limited.

Rockets
Many large rockets use liquid hydrogen as fuel, with liquid oxygen as an oxidizer (LH2/LOX). An advantage of hydrogen rocket fuel is the high effective exhaust velocity compared to kerosene/LOX or UDMH/NTO engines. According to the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation, a rocket with higher exhaust velocity uses less propellant to accelerate. Also the energy density of hydrogen is greater than any other fuel. LH2/LOX also yields the greatest efficiency in relation to the amount of propellant consumed, of any known rocket propellant.

A disadvantage of LH2/LOX engines is the low density and low temperature of liquid hydrogen, which means bigger and insulated and thus heavier fuel tanks are needed compared to methane, although methane is more polluting. This increases the rocket's structural mass which reduces its delta-v significantly. Another disadvantage is the poor storability of LH2/LOX-powered rockets: Due to the constant hydrogen boil-off, the rocket must be fueled shortly before launch, which makes cryogenic engines unsuitable for ICBMs and other rocket applications with the need for short launch preparations.

Overall, the delta-v of a hydrogen stage is typically not much different from that of a dense fuelled stage, but the weight of a hydrogen stage is much less, which makes it particularly effective for upper stages, since they are carried by the lower stages. For first stages, dense fuelled rockets in studies may show a small advantage, due to the smaller vehicle size and lower air drag.

LH2/LOX were also used in the Space Shuttle to run the fuel cells that power the electrical systems. The byproduct of the fuel cell is water, which is used for drinking and other applications that require water in space.

Automobiles
, there are two hydrogen cars publicly available in select markets: the Toyota Mirai and the Hyundai Nexo. The Honda Clarity was produced from 2016 to 2021. Hydrogen combustion cars are not commercially available. In the light road vehicle segment, by the end of 2022, 70,200 fuel cell electric vehicles had been sold worldwide, compared with 26 million plug-in electric vehicles. In 2023, 3,143 hydrogen cars were sold in the US compared with 380,000 BEVs. With the rapid rise of electric vehicles and associated battery technology and infrastructure, the global scope for hydrogen's role in cars is shrinking relative to earlier expectations. John Max of Hydrogen Fuel News believes that hydrogen may, however, be used directly, or as a feedstock for efuel, for vintage and muscle cars.

The first road vehicle powered by a hydrogen fuel cell was the Chevrolet Electrovan, introduced by General Motors in 1966. The Toyota FCHV and Honda FCX, which began leasing on December 2, 2002, became the world's first government-certified commercial hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and the Honda FCX Clarity, which began leasing in 2008, was the world's first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle designed for mass production rather than adapting an existing model. Honda established the world's first fuel cell vehicle dealer network in 2008, and at the time was the only company able to lease hydrogen fuel cell vehicles to private customers.

The 2013 Hyundai Tucson FCEV, a modified Tucson, was introduced to the market as a lease-only vehicle, and Hyundai Motors claimed it was the world's first mass-produced hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. However, due to high prices and a lack of charging infrastructure, sales fell far short of initial plans, with only 273 units sold by the end of May 2015. Hyundai Nexo, which succeeded the Tucson in 2018, was selected as the "safest SUV" by the Euro NCAP in 2018.

Toyota launched the world's first dedicated mass-produced fuel cell vehicle (FCV), the Mirai, in Japan at the end of 2014  and began sales in California, mainly the Los Angeles area and also in selected markets in Europe, the UK, Germany and Denmark later in 2015. The car has a range of 312 mi and takes about five minutes to refill its hydrogen tank. The initial sale price in Japan was about 7 million yen ($69,000). Former European Parliament President Pat Cox estimated that Toyota would initially lose about $100,000 on each Mirai sold. At the end of 2019, Toyota had sold over 10,000 Mirais. Many automobile companies have introduced demonstration models in limited numbers (see List of fuel cell vehicles and List of hydrogen internal combustion engine vehicles).

In 2013 BMW leased hydrogen technology from Toyota, and a group formed by Ford Motor Company, Daimler AG, and Nissan announced a collaboration on hydrogen technology development. In 2015, Toyota announced that it would offer all 5,680 patents related to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell charging station technology, which it has been researching for over 20 years, to its competitors free of charge in order to stimulate the market for hydrogen-powered vehicles. By 2017, however, Daimler had abandoned hydrogen vehicle development, and most of the automobile companies developing hydrogen cars had switched their focus to battery electric vehicles. By 2020, all but three automobile companies had abandoned plans to manufacture hydrogen cars.

Heavy trucks
The International Energy Agency's 2022 net-zero emissions scenario sees hydrogen meeting approximately 30% of heavy truck energy demand in 2050, mainly for long-distance heavy freight (with battery electric power accounting for around 60%).

United Parcel Service began testing of a hydrogen powered delivery vehicle in 2017. In 2020, Hyundai began commercial production of its Xcient fuel cell trucks and shipped ten of them to Switzerland.

In 2022 in Australia, five hydrogen fuel cell class 8 trucks were placed into use to transport zinc from Sun Metals' Townsville mine to the Port of Townsville, Queensland, to be shipped around the world.

Aeroplanes
Some publications project hydrogen may be used in shipping and jetplanes, while others predict that biofuels and batteries will have more commercial success. Companies such as Boeing, Lange Aviation, and the German Aerospace Center are pursuing hydrogen as fuel for crewed and uncrewed aeroplanes. In February 2008 Boeing tested a crewed flight of a small aircraft powered by a hydrogen fuel cell. Uncrewed hydrogen planes have also been tested. For large passenger aeroplanes, The Times reported that "Boeing said that hydrogen fuel cells were unlikely to power the engines of large passenger jet aeroplanes but could be used as backup or auxiliary power units onboard."

In July 2010, Boeing unveiled its hydrogen-powered Phantom Eye UAV, powered by two Ford internal-combustion engines that have been converted to run on hydrogen.

Ships
Hydrogen fuel cells are not suitable for propulsion in large long-distance ships, but they are being considered as a range-extender for smaller, short-distance, low-speed electric vessels, such as ferries. Hydrogen in ammonia is being considered as a long-distance fuel.

Buses
Fuel-cell buses were trialed in Ursus Lublin in 2017. Solaris Bus & Coach introduced its Urbino 12 hydrogen electric buses in 2019. Several dozen were ordered. The first city in the U.S. to have a fleet of hydrogen powered buses was Champaign, Illinois, when in 2021 the Champaign–Urbana Mass Transit District ordered two New Flyer XHE60 articulated hydrogen fuel cell buses, with 10 more New Flyer XHE40 buses added in 2024. In 2022, the city of Montpellier, France, cancelled a contract to procure 51 buses powered by hydrogen fuel cells, when it found that "the cost of operation for hydrogen [buses] is 6 times the cost of electricity".

Fork trucks
A hydrogen internal combustion engine (or "HICE") forklift or HICE lift truck is a hydrogen fueled, internal combustion engine-powered industrial forklift truck used for lifting and transporting materials. The first production HICE forklift truck based on the Linde X39 Diesel was presented at an exposition in Hannover on May 27, 2008. It used a 2.0 litre, 43 kW diesel internal combustion engine converted to use hydrogen as a fuel with the use of a compressor and direct injection.

In 2013 there were over 4,000 fuel cell forklifts used in material handling in the US. As of 2024, approximately 50,000 hydrogen forklifts are in operation worldwide (the bulk of which are in the U.S.), as compared with 1.2 million battery electric forklifts that were purchased in 2021.

Most companies in Europe and the US do not use petroleum powered forklifts, as these vehicles work indoors where emissions must be controlled and instead use electric forklifts. Fuel-cell-powered forklifts can be refueled in 3 minutes. They can be used in refrigerated warehouses, as their performance is not degraded by lower temperatures. The fuel cell units are often designed as drop-in replacements.

Trams and trains
In the International Energy Agency’s 2022 Net Zero Emissions Scenario, hydrogen is forecast to account for 2% of rail energy demand in 2050, while 90% of rail travel is expected to be electrified by then (up from 45% today). Hydrogen’s role in rail would likely be focused on lines that prove difficult or costly to electrify.

In March 2015, China South Rail Corporation (CSR) demonstrated the world's first hydrogen fuel cell-powered tramcar at an assembly facility in Qingdao. Tracks for the new vehicle have been built in seven Chinese cities.

In northern Germany in 2018 the first fuel-cell powered Coradia iLint trains were placed into service; excess power is stored in lithium-ion batteries.

Bicycles and stand-up scooters
In 2007, Pearl Hydrogen Power Source Technology Co of Shanghai, China, demonstrated a PHB hydrogen bicycle. In 2014, Australian scientists from the University of New South Wales presented their Hy-Cycle model. The same year, Canyon Bicycles started to work on the Eco Speed concept bicycle.

In 2017, Pragma Industries of France developed a bicycle that was able to travel 100 km on a single hydrogen cylinder. In 2019, Pragma announced that the product, "Alpha Bike", has been improved to offer an electrically assisted pedalling range of 150 km, and the first 200 of the bikes are to be provided to journalists covering the 45th G7 summit in Biarritz, France.

In 2020, Alles over Waterstof developed a 2-wheel hydrogen powered stand-up scooter. The stand-up scooter has a range of over 20 km on 15 grams of hydrogen. It uses a swappable 1 litre 200 bar hydrogen cylinder. In 2021 the company developed a hydrogen powered cargo-bike, using a static 3 litre 300 bar refillable hydrogen cylinder. The HydroCargo bike has a range of up to 100 km on 80 grams of hydrogen.

Lloyd Alter of TreeHugger responded to the announcement, asking "why … go through the trouble of using electricity to make hydrogen, only to turn it back into electricity to charge a battery to run the e-bike [or] pick a fuel that needs an expensive filling station that can only handle 35 bikes a day, when you can charge a battery powered bike anywhere. [If] you were a captive fleet operator, why [not] just swap out batteries to get the range and the fast turnover?"

Military vehicles
General Motors' military division, GM Defense, focuses on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Its SURUS (Silent Utility Rover Universal Superstructure) is a flexible fuel cell electric platform with autonomous capabilities. Since April 2017, the U.S. Army has been testing the commercial Chevrolet Colorado ZH2 on its U.S. bases to determine the viability of hydrogen-powered vehicles in military mission tactical environments.

Motorcycles and scooters
ENV develops electric motorcycles powered by a hydrogen fuel cell, including the Crosscage and Biplane. Other manufacturers as Vectrix are working on hydrogen scooters. Finally, hydrogen-fuel-cell-electric-hybrid scooters are being made such as the Suzuki Burgman fuel-cell scooter and the FHybrid. The Burgman received "whole vehicle type" approval in the EU. The Taiwanese company APFCT conducted a live street test with 80 fuel-cell scooters for Taiwan's Bureau of Energy.

Auto rickshaws
Hydrogen auto rickshaw concept vehicles have been built by Mahindra HyAlfa and Bajaj Auto.

Quads and tractors
Autostudi S.r.l's H-Due is a hydrogen-powered quad, capable of transporting 1-3 passengers. A concept for a hydrogen-powered tractor has been proposed.

Auto racing
A record of 207.297 mph was set by a prototype Ford Fusion Hydrogen 999 Fuel Cell Race Car at the Bonneville Salt Flats, in August 2007, using a large compressed oxygen tank to increase power. The land-speed record for a hydrogen-powered vehicle of 286.476 mph was set by Ohio State University's Buckeye Bullet 2, which achieved a "flying-mile" speed of 280.007 mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats in August 2008.

In 2007, the Hydrogen Electric Racing Federation was formed as a racing organization for hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicles. The organization sponsored the Hydrogen 500, a 500-mile race.

Internal combustion vehicle
Hydrogen internal combustion engine cars are different from hydrogen fuel cell cars. The hydrogen internal combustion car is a slightly modified version of the traditional gasoline internal combustion engine car. These hydrogen engines burn fuel in the same manner that gasoline engines do; the main difference is the exhaust product. Gasoline combustion results in emissions of mostly carbon dioxide and water, plus trace amounts of carbon monoxide,, particulates and unburned hydrocarbons, while the main exhaust product of hydrogen combustion is water vapor.

In 1807 François Isaac de Rivaz designed the first hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engine. In 1965, Roger E. Billings, then a high school student, converted a Model A to run on hydrogen. In 1970 Paul Dieges patented a modification to internal combustion engines which allowed a gasoline-powered engine to run on hydrogen.

Mazda has developed Wankel engines burning hydrogen, which are used in the Mazda RX-8 Hydrogen RE. The advantage of using an internal combustion engine, like Wankel and piston engines, is the lower cost of retooling for production.

Fuel cell cost
Hydrogen fuel cells are relatively expensive to produce, as their designs require rare substances, such as platinum, as a catalyst. In 2014, former European Parliament President Pat Cox estimated that Toyota would initially lose about $100,000 on each Mirai sold. In 2020, researchers at the University of Copenhagen's Department of Chemistry are developing a new type of catalyst that they hope will decrease the cost of fuel cells. This new catalyst uses far less platinum because the platinum nano-particles are not coated over carbon which, in conventional hydrogen fuel cells, keeps the nano-particles in place but also causes the catalyst to become unstable and denatures it slowly, requiring even more platinum. The new technology uses durable nanowires instead of the nano-particles. "The next step for the researchers is to scale up their results so that the technology can be implemented in hydrogen vehicles."

Freezing conditions
The problems in early fuel-cell designs at low temperatures concerning range and cold start capabilities have been addressed so that they "cannot be seen as show-stoppers anymore". Users in 2014 said that their fuel cell vehicles perform flawlessly in temperatures below zero, even with the heaters blasting, without significantly reducing range. Studies using neutron radiography on unassisted cold-start indicate ice formation in the cathode, three stages in cold start and Nafion ionic conductivity. A parameter, defined as coulomb of charge, was also defined to measure cold start capability.

Service life
The service life of fuel cells is comparable to that of other vehicles. Polymer-electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell service life is 7,300 hours under cycling conditions.

Hydrogen
Hydrogen does not exist in convenient reservoirs or deposits like fossil fuels or helium. It is produced from feedstocks such as natural gas and biomass or electrolyzed from water. A suggested benefit of large-scale deployment of hydrogen vehicles is that it could lead to decreased emissions of greenhouse gases and ozone precursors. However, as of 2014, 95% of hydrogen is made from methane. It can be produced by thermochemical or pyrolitic means using renewable feedstocks, but that is an expensive process.

Renewable electricity can however be used to power the conversion of water into hydrogen: Integrated wind-to-hydrogen (power to gas) plants, using electrolysis of water, are exploring technologies to deliver costs low enough, and quantities great enough, to compete with traditional energy sources. The challenges facing the use of hydrogen in vehicles include its storage on board the vehicle. As of September 2023, hydrogen cost $36 per kilogram at public fueling stations in California, 14 times as much per mile for a Mirai as compared with a Tesla Model 3.

Production
The molecular hydrogen needed as an onboard fuel for hydrogen vehicles can be obtained through many thermochemical methods utilizing natural gas, coal (by a process known as coal gasification), liquefied petroleum gas, biomass (biomass gasification), by a process called thermolysis, or as a microbial waste product called biohydrogen or Biological hydrogen production. 95% of hydrogen is produced using natural gas. Hydrogen can be produced from water by electrolysis at working efficiencies of 65–70%. Hydrogen can be made by chemical reduction using chemical hydrides or aluminum. Current technologies for manufacturing hydrogen use energy in various forms, totaling between 25 and 50 percent of the higher heating value of the hydrogen fuel, used to produce, compress or liquefy, and transmit the hydrogen by pipeline or truck.

Environmental consequences of the production of hydrogen from fossil energy resources include the emission of greenhouse gasses, a consequence that would also result from the on-board reforming of methanol into hydrogen. Hydrogen production using renewable energy resources would not create such emissions, but the scale of renewable energy production would need to be expanded to be used in producing hydrogen for a significant part of transportation needs. In a few countries, renewable sources are being used more widely to produce energy and hydrogen. For example, Iceland is using geothermal power to produce hydrogen, and Denmark is using wind.

Storage
Compressed hydrogen in hydrogen tanks at 350 bar (5,000 psi) and 700 bar (10,000 psi) is used for hydrogen tank systems in vehicles, based on type IV carbon-composite technology.

Hydrogen has a very low volumetric energy density at ambient conditions, compared with gasoline and other vehicle fuels. It must be stored in a vehicle either as a super-cooled liquid or as highly compressed gas, which require additional energy to accomplish. In 2018, researchers at CSIRO in Australia powered a Toyota Mirai and Hyundai Nexo with hydrogen separated from ammonia using a membrane technology. Ammonia is easier to transport safely in tankers than pure hydrogen.

Infrastructure

To enable the delivery of hydrogen fuel to transport end-users, a broad range of investments are needed, including, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the "construction and operation of new port infrastructure, buffer storage, pipelines, ships, refueling stations and plants to convert the hydrogen into a more readily transportable commodity (and potentially back to hydrogen)". In particular, the IEA notes that refueling stations will be needed in locations that are suitable for long‐distance trucking such as industrial hubs and identifies the need for investment in airport infrastructure for the storage and delivery of hydrogen. The IEA deems the infrastructure requirements for hydrogen in shipping more challenging, drawing attention to the "need for major investments and co‐ordinated efforts among fuel suppliers, ports, shipbuilders and shippers".

, there were 49 publicly accessible hydrogen refueling stations in the US, 48 of which were located in California (compared with 42,830 electric charging stations). By 2017, there were 91 hydrogen fueling stations in Japan.

Codes and standards
Hydrogen codes and standards, as well as codes and technical standards for hydrogen safety and the storage of hydrogen, have been an institutional barrier to deploying hydrogen technologies. To enable the commercialization of hydrogen in consumer products, new codes and standards must be developed and adopted by federal, state and local governments.

U.S. initiatives
Fuel cell buses are supported.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) has created incentives for hydrogen fuel cell electric trucks and buses.

Criticism of hydrogen cars
Critics claim the time frame for overcoming the technical and economic challenges to implementing wide-scale use of hydrogen in cars is likely to be at least several decades. They argue that the focus on the use of the hydrogen car is a dangerous detour from more readily available solutions to reducing the use of fossil fuels in vehicles. In 2008, Wired News reported that "experts say it will be 40 years or more before hydrogen has any meaningful impact on gasoline consumption or global warming, and we can't afford to wait that long. In the meantime, fuel cells are diverting resources from more immediate solutions."

In the 2006 documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car?, former U.S. Department of Energy official Joseph Romm said: "A hydrogen car is one of the least efficient, most expensive ways to reduce greenhouse gases." He also argued that the cost to build out a nationwide network of hydrogen refueling stations would be prohibitive. He held the same views in 2014. In 2009, the Los Angeles Times wrote that "hydrogen is a lousy way to move cars." Robert Zubrin, the author of Energy Victory, stated: "Hydrogen is 'just about the worst possible vehicle fuel'". The Economist noted that most hydrogen is produced through steam methane reformation, which creates at least as much emission of carbon per mile as some of today's gasoline cars, but that if the hydrogen could be produced using renewable energy, "it would surely be easier simply to use this energy to charge the batteries of all-electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles." Over their lifetimes, hydrogen vehicles will emit more carbon than gasoline vehicles. The Washington Post asked in 2009, "[W]hy would you want to store energy in the form of hydrogen and then use that hydrogen to produce electricity for a motor, when electrical energy is already waiting to be sucked out of sockets all over America and stored in auto batteries"?

Volkswagen's Rudolf Krebs said in 2013 that "no matter how excellent you make the cars themselves, the laws of physics hinder their overall efficiency. The most efficient way to convert energy to mobility is electricity." He elaborated: "Hydrogen mobility only makes sense if you use green energy", but ... you need to convert it first into hydrogen "with low efficiencies" where "you lose about 40 percent of the initial energy". You then must compress the hydrogen and store it under high pressure in tanks, which uses more energy. "And then you have to convert the hydrogen back to electricity in a fuel cell with another efficiency loss". Krebs continued: "in the end, from your original 100 percent of electric energy, you end up with 30 to 40 percent." In 2015, CleanTechnica listed some of the disadvantages of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles A 2016 study in Energy by scientists at Stanford University and the Technical University of Munich concluded that, even assuming local hydrogen production, "investing in all-electric battery vehicles is a more economical choice for reducing carbon dioxide emissions".

A 2017 analysis published in Green Car Reports concluded that the best hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles consume "more than three times more electricity per mile than an electric vehicle ... generate more greenhouse gas emissions than other powertrain technologies ... [and have] very high fuel costs. ... Considering all the obstacles and requirements for new infrastructure (estimated to cost as much as $400 billion), fuel-cell vehicles seem likely to be a niche technology at best, with little impact on U.S. oil consumption. The US Department of Energy agrees, for fuel produced by grid electricity via electrolysis, but not for most other pathways for generation. A 2019 video by Real Engineering noted that, notwithstanding the introduction of vehicles that run on hydrogen, using hydrogen as a fuel for cars does not help to reduce carbon emissions from transportation. The 95% of hydrogen still produced from fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide, and producing hydrogen from water is an energy-consuming process. Storing hydrogen requires more energy either to cool it down to the liquid state or to put it into tanks under high pressure, and delivering the hydrogen to fueling stations requires more energy and may release more carbon. The hydrogen needed to move a FCV a kilometer costs approximately 8 times as much as the electricity needed to move a BEV the same distance. Also in 2019, Katsushi Inoue, the president of Honda Europe, stated, "Our focus is on hybrid and electric vehicles now. Maybe hydrogen fuel cell cars will come, but that's a technology for the next era."

Assessments since 2020 have concluded that hydrogen vehicles are still only 38% efficient, while battery EVs are from 80% to 95% efficient. A 2021 assessment by CleanTechnica concluded that in addition to the fact that hydrogen cars are far less efficient than electric cars, the vast majority of hydrogen being produced is polluting grey hydrogen, and delivering hydrogen would require building a vast and expensive new infrastructure, the remaining two "advantages of fuel cell vehicles – longer range and fast fueling times – are rapidly being eroded by improving battery and charging technology." A 2022 study in Nature Electronics agreed. Another 2022 article, in Recharge News, stated that ships are more likely to be powered by ammonia or methanol than hydrogen. Also in 2022, Germany's Fraunhofer Institute concluded that hydrogen is unlikely to play a major role in road transport.

A 2023 study by the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research (CICERO) estimated that leaked hydrogen has a global warming effect 11.6 times stronger than CO₂.

Safety and supply
Hydrogen fuel is hazardous because of the low ignition energy (see also autoignition temperature) and high combustion energy of hydrogen, and because it tends to leak easily from tanks due to its small molecular size. Hydrogen embrittlement is also a concern for the storage tank material, as well as the car parts surrounding the tank if chronic leakage is present. Hydrogen is odorless so leakages are not easily picked up without specialized detectors.

Explosions at hydrogen filling stations have been reported. Hydrogen fuelling stations generally receive deliveries of hydrogen by truck from hydrogen suppliers. An interruption at a hydrogen supply facility can shut down multiple hydrogen fuelling stations.

Comparison with other types of alternative fuel vehicle
Hydrogen vehicles compete with various proposed alternatives to the modern fossil fuel internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle infrastructure.

Natural gas
ICE-based compressed natural gas(CNG), HCNG, LPG or LNG vehicles, collectively called natural gas vehicles (NGVs), use methane harvested from natural gas or Biogas as a fuel source. Methane has a higher energy density than hydrogen, and NGVs from Biogas are nearly carbon neutral. Unlike hydrogen vehicles, CNG vehicle technology has been available for many decades, and there is sufficient infrastructure in existing filling stations to provide both commercial and home refueling. Worldwide, there were 14.8 million natural gas vehicles by the end of 2011, mostly in the form of bi-fuel vehicles. The other use for natural gas is in steam reforming which is the common way to produce hydrogen gas for use in electric cars with fuel cells.

Methane is also an alternative rocket fuel.

Plug-in hybrid
Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) are hybrid electric vehicles that can be plugged into the electric grid to recharge the on-board battery pack, rather than relying purely on the internal combustion engine to drive a generator to power the electric motor and battery pack as in conventional hybrid vehicles. The PHEV concept augments the vehicle's fuel efficiency by allowing more EV mode driving, at the same time alleviating range anxiety by having the internal combustion engine (typically a turbo petrol engine) as an auxiliary powerplant or range extender.

Battery electric
In the light road vehicle segment, by 2023, 26 million battery electric vehicles had been sold worldwide, and there were 65,730 public charging stations in North America, in addition to the availability of home and workplace charging via AC power plugs and sockets. Long distance electric trucks require more megawatt charging infrastructure.

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Bôa

Bôa (stylized bôa) are an English alternative rock band formed in London in 1993, by drummer Ed Herten, keyboard player Paul Turrell, and guitarist/vocalist Steve Rodgers. The band progressed from a funk band to a rock band over the years, as bassist Alex Caird and multi-instrumentalist Ben Henderson joined the group, and Jasmine Rodgers was added as vocalist.

They produced two major albums, Twilight (2001) and Get There (2005). Their track "Duvet" was the opening theme song to the anime television series Serial Experiments Lain. The band was originally signed by Polystar in Japan and produced their first album The Race of a Thousand Camels (1998). However, the band decided to change labels and signed with Pioneer LDC (now called NBCUniversal Entertainment Japan) to produce their album Twilight (2001). Bôa's current lineup consists of Jasmine Rodgers (vocals and guitar), Alex Caird (bass), and Lee Sullivan (drums and piano).

Following their success with Twilight, the band decided to create their own independent label called Bôa Recordings to produce. Get There was released on 1 February 2005. It took Bôa in a new direction, with more structure in lyrics and melody, as well as a more mellow, yet more harder-edged/indie rock format. It also had more acoustic elements than the first album.

Career
Originally a funk band, Bôa was formed in 1993, by drummer Ed Herten, keyboardist Paul Turrell, and Steve Rodgers on guitar and vocals.

Alex Caird, who had played with Ed in another band Draggin' Bones, was soon recruited on bass guitar. Steve's younger sister, Jasmine Rodgers, was invited to sing the chorus part of one of their first songs called Fran, and she soon became the lead singer of the group.

Ben Henderson, who had played with Alex in the psychedelic rock band Doctor Sky, was recruited shortly afterward to play saxophone.

Their first live performance was in January 1994, at the London Forum, supporting Steve and Jasmine's father, classic rock singer Paul Rodgers (of Free & Bad Company fame). In the summer of the same year, Ed Herten decided to leave the band to concentrate on his studies.

The new drummer, Lee Sullivan, is the son of Terry Sullivan, the drummer in the band Renaissance. Lee brought a rockier feel to the group's sound which complemented a natural progression away from funk by the band and a migration from saxophone to guitar by Ben Henderson. Henderson started writing for the band on guitar, with the song 'Twilight' moving the band to a darker, indie feel.

Bôa honed their live performances with many gigs across the South of England such as the Glastonbury festival (1995). As a result of their Glastonbury performance, they were chosen as the focus of a TV documentary about the festival that was later distributed on the London show Shift. In 1996, they accepted a recording contract with a Japanese Company, Polystar. They recorded three songs, Twilight, Deeply, and Elephant in London, with producer Darren Allison (Spiritualized, The Divine Comedy) at the Red Bus studios in London. They recorded further tracks for the album with producer Neil Walsh at the Monnow Valley Studios. Although the album was recorded and produced in England, Jasmine and Steve traveled to Japan in 1998, to promote the debut album Race of the Thousand Camels, which was released only in that country.

While signed with Polystar, the band released their first single in 1998, called "Duvet". It was a success in Japan, and became the opening theme of the anime series Serial Experiments Lain. "Duvet" was also on the 1998 album Race of a Thousand Camels in Japan. Meanwhile, the band was working with producer Stuart Epps on new material including an acoustic version of "Duvet" and the song "Drinking".

In 2000, Polystar released both the Tall Snake EP, and featured "Duvet" on the 20th Anniversary of Polystar Collection Vol.1 Female Vocal Love Songs compilation. The Tall Snake EP was released in Japan featuring all three versions of "Duvet" and two songs ("Little Miss" and "Two Steps").

However, in 2000, Ben Henderson left the band to concentrate on his other band, Moth, with his wife, singer-songwriter Tina Henderson, who together currently record, and perform regularly at Steampunk festivals and other events in the UK.

Bôa began touring more extensively and used this time to gain inspiration for their next album. In 2000, Bôa performed a live concert at the Otakon convention and was well received by fans of the Serial Experiments Lain series. In September 2002, they held a live performance at the Hammersmith Apollo (London) and received strong accolades for their performance.

In 2001, due to contractual disagreements with Polystar, the band changed labels and signed with Pioneer LDC (now known as Geneon Universal). Race of a Thousand Camels was retitled Twilight and released to a US audience in 2001, by Pioneer Music. Twilight consisted of songs from their original Japanese album plus other new tracks. They worked closely with Todd Culberhouse and toured in the US to promote the album. Halfway through the tour, Paul Turrell left the band to pursue other interests. However, the band went on to finish the tour and played at the Animefest in Dallas, Texas (Aug 2001).

"Duvet" was remixed by DJ Wasei and was released on another Lain soundtrack titled Serial Experiment Lain Soundtrack: Cyberia Mix in October 2003. The band also released a video to go with the single which was reported to have been filmed on top of the rooftop of the flat in New Malden where Alex Caird, Paul Turrel, and Lee Sullivan used to live, and where the band used to rehearse.

By 2003, the band decided to establish their own recording label, called Boa Recordings. They started recording their third successful album titled Get There and released it under their own label in 2004. The album was sold on the iTunes Store, and both their albums Twilight and Get There were sold by their official distributor CD Baby.

In September 2004, Steve and Jasmine performed Drinking with their father, Paul Rodgers, at The Strat Pack. The Strat Pack was a concert featuring Joe Walsh, Gary Moore, Brian May, David Gilmour, and many more, marking the 50th Anniversary of the Fender Stratocaster guitar. The film was released in 2005.

In 2012, the band started a JustGiving page and announced their support to raise money for AAR JAPAN, a charity that responded to the impact of the 2011 tsunami.

On 4 January 2017, former keyboard player Paul Turrell passed away, which the band announced via their Facebook page on the following day. That May, an unreleased Bôa album was discovered on Turrell's website titled The Farm.

In December 2018, a vinyl edition of Duvet was released exclusively for the Japanese market. This was a surprise to Bôa, who were not aware of the pressing of the record. The band shared the news on their official Facebook page and asked if fans bought the edition from Japan.

In August 2021, "Duvet" saw a massive resurgence in popularity, especially on TikTok, with over 250,000 posts using the song as of August 2023.

In June 2023, the band announced that they were going to be releasing a new album.

In August 2023, the original members of Bôa (from The Race of a Thousand Camels/Twilight/Duvet years) - Jasmine, Steve, Alex, Ben, and Lee made a master recording licensing agreement with Nettwerk Music Group Inc.

On 28 September 2023, "Duvet" charted on the Official Charts and peaked at number 18 and charted for 2 weeks from 28/09/2023 to 05/10/2023.

In March 2024, the band announced on their Facebook page that the song "Duvet" had achieved gold disc status. On 21 March 2024, the band released the lead single for their album Whiplash titled "Walk with Me", their first piece of new music in 19 years. A second single, "Beautiful & Broken", was released on 3 May.

Band members
Current
 * Jasmine Rodgers – vocals (1993–present), guitars (2023–present)
 * Alex Caird – bass (1993–present)
 * Lee Sullivan – drums, percussion, keyboards (1994–present)

Past
 * Steve Rodgers – guitars (1993–2005)
 * Ben Henderson – guitars, saxophone, percussion (1993–2000)
 * Paul Turrell – keyboards, strings, percussion, guitars (1993–2001; died 2017)
 * Ed Herten – drums, percussion (1993–1994)

Discography
Albums
 * Acton Live (unreleased, first uploaded in 2010)
 * The Race of a Thousand Camels (1998, reissued as Twilight in 2001)
 * Get There (2005)
 * The Farm (unreleased, first uploaded in 2017)
 * Whiplash (2024)

EPs Singles
 * Duvet (1998)
 * Tall Snake (1999)
 * "Duvet" (1998)
 * "Walk With Me" (2024)
 * "Beautiful & Broken" (2024)
 * "Worry" (2024)

Film

 * The Strat Pack: Live in Concert (2005)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Bôa


text:
Samuel Colt

Samuel Colt (July 19, 1814 – January 10, 1862) was an American inventor, industrialist, and businessman who established Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company and made the mass production of revolvers commercially viable.

Colt's first two business ventures were producing firearms in Paterson, New Jersey, and making underwater mines; both ended in disappointment. His business affairs improved rapidly after 1847, when the Texas Rangers ordered 1,000 revolvers during the American war with Mexico. Later, his firearms were used widely during the settling of the western frontier. Colt died in 1862 as one of the wealthiest men in America.

Colt's manufacturing methods were sophisticated. His use of interchangeable parts helped him become one of the first to use the assembly line efficiently. Moreover, his innovative use of art, celebrity endorsements, and corporate gifts to promote his wares made him a pioneer of advertising, product placement, and mass marketing.

Early years (1814–1835)
Samuel Colt was born in Hartford, Connecticut the son of Christopher Colt (1780–1850), a farmer who had relocated his family to the city after he became a businessman, and Sarah (née Caldwell). His maternal grandfather, Major John Caldwell, had been an officer of the Continental Army; one of Colt's earliest possessions was John's flintlock pistol. Colt's mother died from tuberculosis when Colt was six years old, and his father married Olivia Sargeant two years later. Colt had three sisters, one of whom died during her childhood. His oldest sister, Margaret, died of tuberculosis at age 19, and the other, Sarah Ann, later died by suicide. One brother, James, became a lawyer; another, Christopher, was a textile merchant. A third brother, John C. Colt, a man of many occupations, was convicted of an 1841 murder and died by suicide on the day he was to be executed.

At age 11, Colt was indentured to a farmer in Glastonbury, where he did chores and attended school. Here he was introduced to the Compendium of Knowledge, a scientific encyclopedia that he preferred to read rather than his Bible studies. Its articles concerning Robert Fulton and gunpowder motivated Colt throughout his life. He discovered that other inventors in the Compendium had accomplished feats that were once deemed impossible, and he wanted to do the same. Later, after hearing soldiers talk about the success of the double-barreled rifle and the impossibility of a gun that could shoot five or six times without reloading, Colt decided that he would create the "impossible gun".

During 1829, at the age of 15, Colt began working in his father's textile plant in Ware, Massachusetts, where he had access to tools, materials, and the factory workers' expertise. Referencing the encyclopedia, Samuel built a homemade galvanic cell and advertised as a Fourth of July event during that year that he would explode a raft on Ware Pond using underwater explosives; although the raft was missed, the explosion was still impressive. Sent to boarding school, he amused his classmates with pyrotechnics. During 1830, a July 4 accident caused a fire that ended his schooling, and his father sent him away to learn the seaman's trade. On a voyage to Calcutta aboard the brig Corvo, Colt had the idea for a type of revolver while at sea, inspired by the capstan, or windlass, which had a ratchet-and-pawl mechanism that he would later say gave him the idea for his revolver designs. On the Corvo, Colt made a wooden model of a pepperbox revolver out of scrap wood. It differed from other pepperbox revolvers at the time in that it allowed the shooter to rotate the cylinder by the action of cocking the hammer, with an attached pawl turning the cylinder, which was then locked firmly in alignment with one of the barrels by a bolt, a great improvement over the pepperbox designs, which required rotating the barrels by hand and hoping for proper indexing and alignment.

When Colt returned to the United States during 1832, he resumed working for his father, who financed the production of two guns, a rifle and a pistol. The first completed pistol exploded when it was fired, but the rifle performed well. His father would not finance any more development, so Samuel needed to find a way to pay for the development of his ideas. He had learned about nitrous oxide (laughing gas) from the factory chemist of his father's textile plant, so he took a portable laboratory on tour and earned a living performing laughing gas demonstrations across the United States and Canada, calling himself as "the Celebrated Dr. Colt of New-York, London and Calcutta". Colt thought of himself as a man of science and believed if he could enlighten people about a new idea like nitrous oxide, he could in turn make people more receptive to his new idea concerning a revolver. He started his lectures on street corners and soon began doing the same in lecture halls and museums. As ticket sales decreased, Colt realized that "serious" museum lectures were not what the people wanted to pay money to hear and that it was dramatic stories of salvation and redemption the public craved. While visiting his brother John in Cincinnati, he partnered with sculptor Hiram Powers for his demonstrations with a theme based on The Divine Comedy. Powers made detailed wax sculptures and paintings based on demons, centaurs, and mummies from Dante's work. Colt constructed fireworks to complete the show, which was a success. According to Colt historian Robert Lawrence Wilson, the "lectures launched Colt's celebrated career as a pioneer Madison Avenue-style pitchman".

Having saved some money and still wanting to be an inventor as opposed to a "medicine man", Colt made arrangements to begin building guns using proper gunsmiths from Baltimore, Maryland. He abandoned the idea of a multiple-barreled revolver and opted for a single fixed-barrel design with a rotating cylinder. The action of the hammer would align the cylinder bores with the single barrel. He sought the counsel of a friend of his father, Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, who loaned him $300 and advised him to perfect his prototype before applying for a patent. Colt hired a gunsmith by the name of John Pearson to build his revolver. Over the next few years, Colt and Pearson argued about money, but the design improved and during 1835 Colt was ready to apply for his U.S. patent. Ellsworth was now the superintendent of the U.S. Patent Office and advised Colt to file for foreign patents first, as a prior U.S. patent would keep Colt from filing a patent in the United Kingdom. In August 1835, Colt left for England and France to secure his foreign patent.

Colt's early revolver (1835–43)
During 1835, Samuel Colt traveled to the United Kingdom, much as had Elisha Collier, a Bostonian who had patented a revolving flintlock there that achieved great popularity. Despite the reluctance of English officials to issue a patent to Colt, no fault could be found with the gun and he was issued his first patent (number 6909). Upon his return to America, he applied for his U.S. patent for a "revolving gun"; he was granted the patent on February 25, 1836 (later numbered 9430X). This instrument and patent number 1304, dated August 29, 1836, protected the basic principles of his revolving-breech loading, folding trigger firearm named the Colt Paterson.

With a loan from his cousin Dudley Selden and letters of recommendation from Ellsworth, Colt formed a corporation of venture capitalists in 1836 to bring his idea to market. With the help of the political acquaintances of these venture capitalists, the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company of Paterson, New Jersey, was chartered by the New Jersey legislature on March 5, 1836. Colt was given a royalty for each gun sold in exchange for his patent rights and stipulated the return of the rights if the company disbanded.

Colt never claimed to have invented revolvers; his design was a more practical adaption of Collier's earlier revolving flintlock incorporating a locking bolt to keep the cylinder aligned with the barrel. The invention of the percussion cap made ignition more reliable, faster, and safer than the older flintlock design. Colt's great contribution was the use of interchangeable parts. Knowing that some gun parts were made by machine, he envisioned all the parts of every Colt gun to be interchangeable and made by machine, to be assembled later by hand. His goal was an assembly line. This is shown by an 1836 letter that Colt wrote to his father in which he said:

Colt's U.S. revolver patent gave him a monopoly of revolver manufacture until 1857. His was the first practical revolver and the first practical repeating firearm, thanks to progress made in percussion technology. No longer a mere novelty weapon, the revolver became an industrial and cultural legacy, as well as a contribution to the development of war technology, represented ironically by the name of one of his company's later innovations, the "Peacemaker".

Early problems and failures
Although by the end of 1837 the Arms Company had made more than 1,000 weapons, there were no sales. After the Panic of 1837, the company's underwriters were reluctant to fund the new machinery that Colt needed to make interchangeable parts, so he went on the road to raise money. Demonstrating his gun to people in general stores did not generate the sales volume he needed, so with another loan from his cousin Selden, he went to Washington, D.C., and demonstrated it to President Andrew Jackson. Jackson approved of the gun and wrote Colt a note saying so. With this letter, Colt got a bill approved by Congress endorsing a demonstration for the military, but failed to obtain an appropriation for military purchase of the weapon. A promising order from the state of South Carolina for 50 to 75 pistols was canceled when the company did not produce them quickly enough.

Constant problems for Colt were the provisions of the Militia Act of 1808, which stated that any arms purchased by a state militia had to be in current service in the United States military. This act prevented state militias from allocating funds towards the purchase of experimental weapons or foreign weapons.

Colt imperiled his own company by his reckless spending. Selden often chastised him for using corporate funds to buy an expensive wardrobe or give lavish gifts to potential clients. Selden twice prohibited Colt from using company money for liquor and fancy dinners; Colt thought getting potential customers inebriated would generate more sales.

The company was briefly saved by the war against the Seminoles in Florida which provided the first sale of Colt's revolvers and his new revolving rifles. The soldiers in Florida praised the new weapon, but the unusual hammerless design, sixty years ahead of its time, resulted in difficulty in training men who were used to exposed-hammer guns. Consequently, many curious soldiers took the locks apart. This resulted in breakage of parts, stripped screw heads and inoperable guns. Colt soon reworked his design to leave the firing hammer exposed, but problems continued. During late 1843, after the loss of payment for the Florida pistols, the Paterson plant closed and a public auction was held in New York City to sell the company's most liquid assets.

Mines and tinfoil
Colt did not refrain long from manufacturing and began selling underwater electrical detonators and waterproof cable of his own invention. Soon after the failure of the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company, he teamed with Samuel Morse to lobby the US government for funds. Colt's waterproof cable, made from tar-coated copper, proved valuable when Morse ran telegraph lines under lakes, rivers, and bays and made attempts to lay a telegraph line under the Atlantic Ocean. Morse used the battery from one of Colt's mines to transmit a telegraph message from Manhattan to Governors Island when his own battery was too weak to send the signal.

When tensions with the British prompted Congress to appropriate funds for Colt's project toward the end of 1841, he demonstrated his underwater mines to the US government. During 1842 he used one of the devices to destroy a moving vessel to the satisfaction of the United States Navy and President John Tyler. However, opposition from John Quincy Adams, who was serving as a US Representative from Massachusetts's 8th congressional district, scuttled the project as "not fair and honest warfare" and termed the Colt mine an "unchristian contraption".

After this setback, Colt turned his attention to perfecting tinfoil cartridges he had originally designed for use in his revolvers. The standard at the time was to have powder and ball contained in a paper or skin envelope or "cartridge" for ease of loading. However, if the paper got wet it would ruin the powder. Colt tried alternative materials such as rubber cement, but decided to use a thin type of tinfoil. During 1841 he made samples of these cartridges for the army. During tests of the foil cartridges, 25 rounds were shot from a musket without cleaning. When the breech plug was removed from the barrel no fouling from the tin foil was evident. The reception was moderate and the army purchased a few thousand rounds for further testing. During 1843 the army gave Colt an order for 200,000 of the tinfoil cartridges packed 10 to a box for use in muskets.

With the money made from the cartridges, Colt resumed business with Morse for ideas other than detonating mines. Colt concentrated on manufacturing his waterproof telegraph cable, believing the business would prosper along with Morse's invention. He began promoting the telegraph companies so he could create a greater market for his cable, for which he was to be paid $50 per mile. Colt tried to use this revenue to resurrect the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company, but could not secure funds from other investors or even his own family. This left Colt time to improve his earlier revolver design and have a prototype built by a gunsmith in New York for his "New and improved revolver". This new revolver had a stationary trigger and had a larger caliber. Colt submitted his single prototype to the War Department as a "Holster revolver".

Colt's Patent Manufacturing Company (1847–1860)
Captain Samuel Walker of the Texas Rangers had acquired some of the first Colt revolvers produced during the Seminole War and saw first-hand their effective use as his 15-man unit defeated a larger force of 70 Comanches in Texas. Walker wanted to order Colt revolvers for use by the Rangers in the Mexican–American War and traveled to New York City in search of Colt. He met Colt in a gunsmith's shop on January 4, 1847, and ordered 1,000 revolvers. Walker asked for a few changes; the new revolvers would have to hold 6 shots instead of 5, have enough power to kill either a human or a horse with a single shot and be quicker to reload. The large order allowed Colt to establish a new firearm business. Colt hired Eli Whitney Blake, who was established in the arms business, to make his guns. Colt used his prototype and Walker's improvements as the basis for a new design. From this new design, Blake produced the first thousand-piece order known as the Colt Walker. The company then received an order for a thousand more; Colt shared the profits at $10 per pistol for both orders.

With the money he made from the sales of the Walkers and a loan from his cousin, banker Elisha Colt, Colt bought the machinery and tooling from Blake to build his own factory: Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company factory at Hartford. The first revolving-breech pistols made at the factory were named "Whitneyville-Hartford-Dragoons" and became so popular that the word "Colt" was often used as a generic term for the revolvers. The Whitneyville-Hartford Dragoons, largely built from leftover Walker parts, are known as the first model in the transition from the Walker to the Dragoon series. Beginning 1848, more contracts followed for what is known now as the Colt Dragoon Revolvers. These models were based on the Walker Colts, and during three generations slight changes to each model showed the evolution of the design. The improvements were 7+1/2 in barrels for accuracy, shorter chambers and an improved loading lever. The shorter chambers were loaded to 50 grains of powder, instead of 60 grains in the earlier Walkers, to prevent the occurrence of ruptured cylinders. Finally, a positive catch was installed at the end of the loading lever to prevent the lever from dropping due to recoil.

Besides being used in the war with Mexico, Colt's revolvers were employed as a sidearm by both civilians and soldiers. Colt's revolvers were a major tool used during the westward expansion. A revolver which could fire six times without reloading helped soldiers and settlers fend off larger forces which were not armed in the same way. During 1848, Colt introduced smaller versions of his pistols known as Baby Dragoons that were made for civilian use. During 1850 General Sam Houston and General Thomas Jefferson Rusk lobbied Secretary of War William Marcy and President James K. Polk to adopt Colt's revolvers for the U.S. military. Rusk testified: "Colt's Repeating Arms are the most efficient weapons in the world and the only weapon which has enabled the frontiersman to defeat the mounted Indian in his own peculiar mode of warfare". Lt. Bedley McDonald, who was a subordinate of Walker when Walker was killed in Mexico, stated that 30 Rangers used Colt's revolvers to keep 500 Mexicans in check. Colt used this general design for the Colt 1851 Navy Revolver which was larger than the Baby Dragoon, but not quite as large as the full-sized version. The gun became the standard sidearm for U.S. military officers and proved popular among civilian buyers. After the testimony by Houston and Rusk, the next issue became how quickly Colt could supply the military. Ever the opportunist, when the War with Mexico was ended, Colt sent agents south of the border to procure sales from the Mexican government.

Patent extension

During this period, Colt received an extension on his patent, since he did not collect fees for it during the early years. During 1849, gun makers James Warner and Massachusetts Arms infringed on the patent. Colt sued the companies, and the court ordered that Warner and Massachusetts Arms cease revolver production. Colt then threatened to sue Allen & Thurber due to the cylinder design of their double-action pepperbox revolver. However, Colt's lawyers doubted that this suit would be successful, and the case was resolved with a settlement of $15,000. Production of Allen pepperboxes continued until the expiration of Colt's patent during 1857. During 1854 Colt struggled for his patent extension with the U.S. Congress, which initiated a special committee to investigate charges that Colt had bribed government officials in securing this extension. By August he was exonerated, and the story became national news when the magazine Scientific American reported that the fault was not with Colt, but with Washington politicians. With a virtual monopoly, Colt sold his pistols in Europe, where demand was high due to tense international relations. By telling each nation that the others were buying Colt's pistols, Colt was able to get large orders from many countries who feared falling behind in the arms race.

A major cause of Colt's success was vigorous protection of his patent rights. Even though he had the only lawful patent for his type of revolver, scores of imitators copied his work and Colt found himself litigating constantly. For each one of these cases, Colt's lawyer, Edward N. Dickerson, deftly exploited the patent system and successfully ended the competition. However, Colt's zealous protection of his patents greatly impeded firearms development as a whole in the United States. His preoccupation with patent infringement suits slowed his own company's transition to the cartridge system and prevented other firms from pursuing revolver designs. At the same time, Colt's policies forced some competing inventors to greater innovation by denying them major features of his mechanism; as a result, they created their own.

Colt knew he had to make his revolvers affordable, as the doom of many great inventions was a high retail price. Colt fixed his prices at a level below his competition to maximize sales volume. From his experience in haggling with government officials, he knew what numbers he would have to generate to make enough profit to invest money in improving his machinery, thereby limiting imitators' ability to produce a comparable weapon at a lesser price. Although successful at this, for the most part, his preoccupation with marketing strategies and patent protection caused him to miss a great opportunity in firearms development when he dismissed an idea from one of his gunsmiths, Rollin White. White had an idea of a "bored-through" revolver cylinder to allow cartridges (made of paper at the time) to be loaded from the rear of the cylinder. Only one gun fitting White's design was ever made, and it was not considered practical for the ammunition of the time. A year after White left Colt, Colt's competitor, Smith & Wesson, attempted to patent a revolver using metallic cartridges only to find that it infringed on White's patent for the bored-through cylinder. They then licensed that component of White's patent and kept Colt from being able to build cartridge firearms for almost 20 years.

Hartford
Colt purchased a large tract of land beside the Connecticut River, where he built his first factory during 1848, a larger factory named the Colt Armory during 1855, a manor that he called Armsmear during 1856, and employee tenement housing. He established a ten-hour work day for employees, installed washing stations in the factory, mandated a one-hour lunch period, and built the Charter Oak Hall, where employees could enjoy games, newspapers, and discussion rooms. Colt managed his plant with a military-like discipline: he would dismiss workers for tardiness, sub-par work or even suggesting improvements to his designs.

Colt hired Elisha K. Root as his chief mechanic in arranging the plant's machinery. Root had been successful in an earlier venture automating the production of axes and made, bought, or improved jigs, fixtures and profile machinery for Colt. Over the years he developed specialized machinery for stock turning or cutting the rifling in gun barrels. Root has been credited as "the first to build special purpose machinery and apply it to the manufacture of a commercial product". Colt historian Herbert G. Houze wrote, "had it not been for Root's inventive genius, Colt's dream of mass production would never have been realized".

Thus, Colt's factory was the first to make use of the concept known as the assembly line. The idea was not new but was never successful in industry at the time because of the lack of interchangeable parts. Root's machinery changed that for Colt, since the machines completed as much as 80% of the work and less than 20% of the parts required hand fitting and filing. Colt's revolvers were made by machine, but he insisted on final hand finishing and polishing of his revolvers to impart a handmade feel. Colt hired artisan gun makers from Bavaria and developed a commercial use for Waterman Ormsby's grammagraph to produce "roll-die" engraving on steel, particularly on the cylinders. He hired Bavarian engraver Gustave Young for fine hand engraving on his more "custom" pieces. In an attempt to attract skilled European-immigrant workers to his plant, Colt built a village near the factory away from the tenements which he named Coltsville and modeled the homes after a village in Potsdam. In an effort to end the flooding from the river he planted German osiers, a type of willow tree, in a 2-mile-long dike. He subsequently built a factory to manufacture wicker furniture made from these trees.

On June 5, 1856, Colt married Elizabeth Jarvis, the daughter of the Rev. William Jarvis, who lived downriver from Hartford. The wedding was lavish and featured the ceremony on a steamship overlooking the factory as well as fireworks and rifle salutes. The couple had four children: two daughters and a son who died in infancy and a son born during 1858, Caldwell Hart Colt.

London

Soon after establishing his Hartford factory, Colt decided to establish a factory in or near Europe and chose London. He organized a large display of his firearms at the Great Exhibition of 1851 at Hyde Park, London and ingratiated himself by presenting cased engraved Colt revolvers to such appropriate officials as Britain's Master General of the Ordnance. At one exhibit Colt disassembled ten guns and reassembled ten guns using different parts from different guns. As the world's major proponent of mass production techniques, Colt delivered a lecture concerning the subject to the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) in London. The membership rewarded his efforts by awarding him the Silver Telford Medal. With help from ICE secretary Charles Manby Colt established his London operation near Vauxhall Bridge on the River Thames and began production on January 1, 1853. During a tour of the factory, Charles Dickens was so impressed with the facilities that he recorded his comments of Colt's revolvers in an 1852 edition of Household Words: "Among the pistols, we saw Colt's revolver; and we compared it with the best English revolver. The advantage of Colt's over the English is, that the user can take a sight; and the disadvantage is, that the weapon requires both hands to fire."

The factory's machines mass-produced parts that were completely interchangeable and could be put together on assembly lines using standardized patterns and gauges by unskilled labor, as opposed to England's principal gun makers who made each part by hand. Colt's London factory remained in operation for only four years. Unwilling to alter his open-top single-action design for the solid frame double-action revolver that the British asked for, Colt sold scarcely 23,000 revolvers to the British Army and Navy. During 1856 he closed the London plant and had the machinery, tooling, and unfinished guns shipped to Hartford.

Marketing
When foreign heads of state would not grant him an audience, as he was only a private citizen, he persuaded the governor of the state of Connecticut to make him a lieutenant colonel and aide-de-camp of the state militia. With this rank, he toured Europe again to promote his revolvers. He used marketing techniques which were innovative at the time. He frequently gave custom engraved versions of his revolvers to heads of state, military officers, and celebrities such as Giuseppe Garibaldi, King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, and Hungarian rebel Lajos Kossuth. Colt commissioned western artist George Catlin to produce a series of paintings depicting exotic scenes in which a Colt weapon was prominently used against Indians, wild animals, or bandits in the earliest form of "product placement" advertisement. He placed numerous advertisements in the same newspapers; The Knickerbocker published as many as eight in the same edition. Lastly, he hired authors to write stories about his guns for magazines and travel guides. One of Colt's biggest acts of self-promotion was the payment to the publishers of United States Magazine $1,120 ($61,439 by 1999 standards) to publish a 29-page fully illustrated story showing the inner workings of his factory.

After his revolvers had gained acceptance, Colt had his staff search for unsolicited news stories containing mention of his guns that he could excerpt and reprint. He went so far as to hire agents in other states and territories to find such samples, to buy hundreds of copies for himself and to give the editor a free revolver for writing them, particularly if such a story disparaged his competition. Many of the revolvers Colt gave away as "gifts" had inscriptions such as "Compliments of Col. Colt" or "From the Inventor" engraved on the back straps. Later versions contained his entire signature which was used in many of his advertisements as a centerpiece, using his celebrity as a seeming guarantee of the performance of his weapons. Colt eventually secured a trademark for his signature.

One of his slogans, “God created men, Col. Colt made them equal,” (claiming that any person could, regardless of physical strength, defend themselves with a Colt gun) became a popular adage in American culture.

Later years and death
Before the American Civil War, Colt supplied both the North and the South with firearms. He had been known to sell weapons to warring parties on both sides of other conflicts in Europe and did the same with respect to the war in America. During 1859 Colt considered building an armory in the South and as late as 1861 had sold 2,000 revolvers to Confederate agent John Forsyth. Although trade with the South had not been restricted at that time, newspapers such as the New York Daily Tribune, The New York Times and the Hartford Daily Courant termed him a Southern sympathizer and traitor to the Union. In response to these charges, Colt was commissioned as a colonel by the state of Connecticut on May 16, 1861, of the 1st Regiment Colts Revolving Rifles of Connecticut armed with the Colt revolving rifle. Colt envisioned this unit as being staffed by men more than six feet tall and armed with his weapons. However, the unit was never sent to the field and Colt was discharged on June 20, 1861.

Samuel Colt died of complications of gout in Hartford on January 10, 1862. He was interred on the property of his private residence Armsmear and reinterred to Cedar Hill Cemetery in 1894. At the time of his death, Colt's estate, which he willed to his wife and three-year-old son Caldwell Hart Colt, was estimated to be valued at about $15,000,000. His professional responsibilities were given to his brother-in-law, Richard Jarvis. The only other person mentioned in Colt's will was Samuel Caldwell Colt, the son of his brother, John C. Colt.

Colt historian William Edwards wrote that Samuel Colt had married Caroline Henshaw (who later married his brother, John) in Scotland during 1838, and that the son she bore later was Samuel Colt's and not his brother John's. In a 1953 biography about Samuel Colt based largely on family letters, Edwards wrote that John Colt's marriage to Caroline during 1841 was a way to legitimize her unborn son as the real father, Samuel Colt, felt she was not fit to be the wife of an industrialist and divorce was a social stigma at the time. After John's death, Samuel Colt cared financially for the child, named Samuel Caldwell Colt, with a large allowance, and paid for his tuition in what were described as "the finest private schools." In correspondence to and about his namesake, Samuel Colt referred to him as his "nephew" in quotes. Historians such as Edwards and Harold Schechter have said this was the elder Colt's way of letting the world know that the boy was his own son without saying so directly. After Colt's death, he left the boy $2 million by 2010 standards. Colt's widow, Elizabeth Jarvis Colt, and her brother, Richard Jarvis contested this. In probate court Caroline's son Sam produced a valid marriage license showing that Caroline and Samuel Colt were married in Scotland during 1838 and that this document made him a rightful heir to part of Colt's estate, if not to the Colt Manufacturing Company.

Colt was a Freemason.

Legacy
It is estimated that during its first 25 years of manufacturing, Colt's company produced more than 400,000 revolvers. Before his death, each barrel was stamped: "Address Col. Samuel Colt, New York, US America", or a variation using a London address. Colt did this as New York and London were major cosmopolitan cities and he retained an office in New York at 155 Broadway where he based his salesmen.

Colt was the first American manufacturer to use art as a marketing tool when he hired Catlin to prominently display Colt firearms in his paintings. He was awarded numerous government contracts after making gifts of his highly embellished and engraved revolvers with exotic grips such as ivory or pearl to government officials. On a visit to Constantinople he gave a custom-engraved and gold inlaid revolver to the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire Abdülmecid I, informing him that the Russians were buying his pistols, thus securing a Turkish order for 5,000 pistols; he neglected to tell the Sultan he had used the same tactic with the Russians to elicit an order.

Apart from gifts and bribes, Colt employed an effective marketing program which comprised sales promotion, publicity, product sampling, and public relations. He used the newspress to his own advantage by giving revolvers to editors, prompting them to report "all the accidents that occur to the Sharps & other humbug arms", and listing incidents for which Colt weapons had been "well used against bears, Indians, Mexicans, etc". Colt's firearms did not always fare well in standardized military tests; he preferred written testimonials from individual soldiers who used his weapons and these were what he most relied on to secure government contracts.

Colt felt that bad press was just as important as good press, provided that his name and his revolvers received mention. When he opened the London armory, he posted a 14-foot sign on the roof across from Parliament reading: "Colonel Colt's Pistol Factory" as a publicity stunt, which was noted by the British press. Eventually the British government forced him to remove this sign. Colt historian Herbert Houze wrote that Colt championed the concept of modernism before the word was invented, he pioneered the use of celebrity endorsements to promote his products, he introduced the phrase "new and improved" to advertising and demonstrated the commercial value of trade-name recognition as a word for "revolver" in French is le colt. Barbara M. Tucker, professor of history and director of the Center for Connecticut Studies at Eastern Connecticut State University, wrote that Colt's marketing techniques transformed the firearm from a utilitarian object into a symbol of American identity. Tucker added that Colt associated his revolvers with American patriotism, freedom, and individualism while asserting America's technological supremacy over Europe's.

In 1867, Colt's widow, Elizabeth, had an Episcopal church designed by Edward Tuckerman Potter built as a memorial to him and the three children they lost. The church's architecture contains guns and gun-smithing tools sculpted in marble to commemorate Colt's life as an arms maker. In 1896, a parish house was built on the site as a memorial to their son, Caldwell, who died in 1894. In 1975, the Church of the Good Shepherd and Parish House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Colt established libraries and educational programs within his armories for his employees which provided training for several generations of toolmakers and other machinists, who had great influence in other manufacturing efforts of the next half century. Prominent examples included Francis A. Pratt, Amos Whitney, Henry Leland, Edward Bullard, Worcester R. Warner, Charles Brinckerhoff Richards, William Mason and Ambrose Swasey.

In 2006, Samuel Colt was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

title: Samuel Colt


text:
Talk:Applet

Is it really an applet?
The article claims notepad, or paint are applets, later defined to be not "full-featured application programs". But I'd argue that paint or the other preinstalled windows applications don't fit that definition.

Text in question: "Examples of applications often classified as applets are all of the accessories bundled in Microsoft Windows (such as Windows Notepad or Microsoft Paint). Applets are not full-featured application programs, and are intended to be easily accessible.[2]" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2620:101:f000:700:5d2c:4c56:bf22:751a (talk • contribs)
 * You're right, desk accessories are not typically considered applets; who wrote that might be confusing the concept with transient and auxiliary applications. Only accessories that run under a common widget engine are called applets. I've corrected the article. Diego (talk) 12:12, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Proposed merge
Although it appears that no one has commented much on the topic, I found in the entry on widgets that the part of it pertaining to Apple dashboard widgets and Yahoo widgets has been suggested to be merged with the Applet article. Using the definition of an applet as a minor application that runs inside another application, this would make sense. However, when a person thinks of an applet, they don't think of a Widget for one of these engines. Also, when you mention a widget, people don't think about the term applet either. If they were merged, people visiting the applet page would be suprized to find information on widgets, and people looking for information on widgets would have to work harder to find their information.

 * The trouble is that the word "applet" isn't really used that much in the Windows world ( with the possible exception of the old(er) developers ), the word is more commonly associated with the Mac. "Widget" is a good modern name to describe a small, simple desktop application which usually has a single purpose ( like most Mac dashboard widgets ), so based on that I believe merging would just cause more confusion. Widget is definitely not a buzzword, I have personally been using the word for years to describe mini-applications for Windows and Mac systems, and I will continue to do so seeing as most modern developers understand what you're talking about when you drop "widget" into a conversation.

 * To be honest I think that the GUI related text ( text fields, checkboxes, etc ) should be moved into it's own "Components" page ( again, this may just be an old-school vs new-school way of thinking ), and the desktop applications section should remain under "Widgets".

 * Nutrox 13:14, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

 * GUI Components have been called Widgets since they debuted in the Xerox Star OS. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 12.34.246.39 (talk • contribs).

 * Yes, Widget has stood for GUI components much longer than the more recent meaning of small desktop application. —Doug Bell talk 18:45, 5 December 2006 (UTC)..

Link suggestions
An automated Wikipedia link suggester has some possible wiki link suggestions for the Applet article, and they have been placed on this page for your convenience. Tip: Some people find it helpful if these suggestions are shown on this talk page, rather than on another page. To do this, just add to this page. — LinkBot 01:04, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Definition source
In a simple Google search for "Define Applet," the number of sources claiming that only Java applets count is overwhelming. I think we need a good source telling the original definition. I don't feel qualified to do this because I can't be sure how many sources are getting their definitions from Wikipedia.

That is only what I consider the most important source to find. In fact this article cites no sources, so I'm marking it accordingly.--Brilliand 15:56, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Crapplet
Any reference to "crapplet" on this page seems like a pretty clear violation of NPOV. Am I wrong? AdamMorton 05:19, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes. I didn't invent the term, but it is often used synonymously, in a perjorative sense, for "applet". Pointing out the fact that this usage exists is quite NPOV, the usage is not being recommended, merely pointed out. There are countless examples of this on Wikipedia, eg. the User article mentions the "Luser" term. Many people do indeed refer to such programs as "crapplets", I'm not necessarily endorsing that, I'm just pointing out a common usage. Artipol 06:28, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Removed unnecessary, useless and offensive example in the above paragraph. Todd 88.251.228.231 (talk) 17:42, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I think the part that is not WP:NPOV is where you say "due to the fact that they are rarely useful for serious usage". The user (computing) example is definitely a relevant one. I guess you could make a "crapplet" entry and add it to a "See Also" heading... i don't know why "Compare" was used in User, as it is not a standard heading. I don't think crapplet really deserves an entry though, because Wikipedia is not a jargon or slang guide. The same probably applies to Luser. AdamMorton 00:13, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

"small application" as "applet"
If the primary definition of applet is going to be "a small application like notepad" as User:Artipol suggests, then that would require pretty extensive reorganization of this article, as subsequent sections are all working under the assumption that an applet is "a software component that runs in the context of another program". Using the "small application" definition makes the rest of the article inconsistent.

Note that the "small application" definition is more-or-less a verbatim copy of the CNET glossary version which according to archive.org has existed since at least late 1996. It is possibly a copyright issue as it now stands. Also, anecdotally (meaning via google search) I don't see a lot of support for that "small application" use of "applet". But, of course, this is an article with no citations, so, who knows? AdamMorton 05:19, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest moving the rest of the article to a more suitable topic, eg. "browser plug-in" or similar. I was unaware of the CNET definition, any resemblance is coincidental. I guess there are only so many ways to concisely and clearly define the same term. I have changed it a bit so there is less resemblance. Anyway the term has been widely used eg. in reviews of operating systems, for at least 20 years, probably longer. Using the term to describe Java software or whatever is a twisting of the original definition, which predates Java, WWW etc. The vast majority of Java programs do seem to be (cr)applets, but this does not mean all applets are Java program. Artipol 06:26, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

On rereading, i don't think even your original text was close enough to be a copyright violation. There is a survey of online dictionary definitions which has both uses of the word that are currently in this article, plus usage specifically as a java applet. You might want to add your definition to the Applet page as well. AdamMorton 00:40, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

AmigaOS
I've removed the reference to AmigaOS bundled applications in the second paragraph. These are not examples that many readers will be familiar with, and reads like a contrived attempt to throw in Amiga references wherever. I was a big fan of the Amiga but this is just self-serving. Chris 17:55, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

A mistake?
From the article: "The term was introduced in AppleScript in 2010." I guess that's a mistake (currently I don't have the knowledge to fix it) Orimosenzon (talk) 12:09, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Those minor factual inaccuracies are often due to vandalism. In such cases, look the article's history to see if the change was recent, and revert it. Diego (talk) 10:40, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yup.. that's what I should have done (just didn't think of it). Thanks Orimosenzon (talk) 05:27, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Applets and routines Section
Can anyone find a cite for this section? And any thoughts on which section this might be appropriate for (such as 'Applets as extension of other software' i.e. Internet Explorer), or removed (perhaps its already discussed in Java Applets? Jwoodger (talk) 03:49, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

"Applet orignally comes from AppleScript"

 * Source? I thought that since an applet is like a mini-application, the word was a combinition of application (app) and -let (which is a suffix that denotes something of smaller size). Even my Apple-based Dictionary says this is the origin of the word--98.149.214.120 (talk) 09:37, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi, you're right. Here is a definition at http://dictionary.reference.com/etymology/applet : applet by 1995, a dim. formation from application. I think the incorrect statement should be removed. Romanian definition from www.stilxxi.ro/pagini/dictionar-termeni-internet.php (website currently unavailable): "Un applet este forma diminutivata pentru app (aplicatie), cu referire la programe simple, cu o singura functie, distribuite foarte des impreuna cu produse complexe" which means "An applet is the diminutive form for app(lication), refering to simple, one-function programs, distributed very often together with complex products". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.186.177.250 (talk) 18:29, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

"Applets are used to provide interactive features to web applications that cannot be provided by HTML alone."
(in section "Web-Based Applets")

This is no longer the case, since the advent and standardization of the HTML5 canvas tag. Not sure how to reword, since this whole section sets up a dichotomy between "HTML" and "Applets", which is now obsolete.

title: Talk:Applet


text:
William Otis

William Smith Otis (September 20, 1813 – November 13, 1839) was an American inventor of the steam shovel. Otis received a patent for his creation on February 24, 1839.

In 1839 William Smith Otis, civil engineer of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was issued a US patent for the steam shovel (No. 1,089) for excavating and (removing earth). Officially the patent drawing is missing but a drawing exists which is said to be the one from the patent and this shows the crane mounted on a railroad car. A load of earth could be lifted by the bucket, raised by the crane and turned to be dumped, such as in railcars. The patent described how a steam engine of a type then in ordinary use, was installed with a power control mechanism for the crane, and a system of pulleys to move its arms and bucket. It could move about 380 cubic meters of earth a day, with its 1.1 cubic meter capacity shovel and 180° slewing wooden jib. It was first used on the Western Railroad in Massachusetts.

Otis was born on September 20, 1813, in Pelham, Massachusetts. He was a cousin of Elisha Otis of elevator fame. At an early age, William was interested in earthworks and mechanics. At the age of 22, he had shown an uncommon mechanical ingenuity and created the first steam powered mechanical excavator.

Using materials obtained in vicinity of Canton, Massachusetts, William created the machine in 1835 which was used building railroad lines between Norwich and Worcester. Working with the company, ”Carmichael and Fairbanks”, William Smith Otis devised an apparatus carrying out the same actions as the person with a shovel.

Otis moved to Philadelphia and enlisted the talents of engineer and inventor Joseph Harrison Jr. to help construct a prototype. Harrison operated the company ”Garrett and Eastwick," and fabricated a pre-production model in 1836. On June 15, 1836, William Smith Otis received the patent for the invention; however during a fire, the engineering specifications had been destroyed.

On February 24, 1839, the patent behind number 1089 officially entered validity, and called “Crane-Excavator for Excavating and Removing Earth”.

Otis died of typhoid fever on November 13, 1839, at the age of 26.

title: William Otis