Hugo's aim was to create a consortium of academic and private organisations with each having a strong motivation to succeed. He held strong veiw's about mangement processes and organisational structures. He believed that company’s should not employee more than 500 people at a time and that decision making should be democratic and also involve employees from all aspects of the team.
The Riversimple company designs energy-efficient automobiles, including the Morgan LIFEcar and the Riversimple Urban Car. (hybarn).

The name LIFECar was coined by the team at OSCar Automotive Ltd. The name LIFECar summarises key design principles advocated by RiverSimple. LIFECar stands for Lightweight Integrated Fuel `Efficient Car. Hugo Spowers (founder of OSCar Automotive Ltd and Managing Partner at RiverSimple
LLP), sought to demonstrate with the LIFECar project that significant gains in fuel efficiency could be achieved with readily available technology. In order for this project to take place, and with the initial and far-sighted support of the Morgan Motor Company, he formed the LIFECar consortium of Cranfield University, Linde, Oxford University and QinetiQ; together they received support from BERR, formerly the DTI, to part fund the project.

Key elements of the design (as the name suggest) include the lightweight structure and the integrated whole system design of the vehicle around the characteristics of a fuel cell.
LIFECar combines a hydrogen fuel cell with a bank of ultra capacitors such that cruise and acceleration requirements are decoupled and resolved in a highly optimised fashion.
By combining these technologies with a lightweight structure, LIFECar achieves a unique combination of performance, cost effectiveness and fuel efficiency.

Hugo derived his idea of the hyper car project from Amory Lovings who was at the Rocky Mountain Institute, From here he adopted the principal of natural capitalism where he practised using assets as efficiently as possible. The HFC design was placed in public domain by lovins who belived that this will make existing car makers pressured into adopitng the desing.

The project was based around hydrogen as a fuel source because when it burns its only emission is pure water.

The LIFECar was based on a chassis derived from the Morgan Aero 8, powered by a hydrogen fuel cell produced by Qinetiq. Its aim was to demonstrate that significant gains in fuel efficiency can be achieved with readily available technology.

The car's fuel cell system operates by electrochemically combining on-board hydrogen wîth oxygen taken from the air outside. Although in most respects fuel cells are more like engines than batteries, to the extent that they generate energy from fuel in a tank rather than store energy, like batteries, they use electrodes (solid electrical conductors) wîth an electrolyte (an electrically conductive medium). When the hydrogen molecules come into contact wîth the negative electrodes, the molecules split into protons and electrons. The protons are then carried across the proton exchange membrane to the positive electrode of the fuel cell whilst the electrons travel around the external circuit as electricity. The molecules of the hydrogen and oxygen are combined chemically, wîth water as the only waste product. The only emission from the QinetiQ fuel cell will be water vapour. The electric power generated by the fuel cells powers the electric motors and turns the wheels of the vehicle.

The aim of the Hyrban project is to develop a highly energy-efficient vehicle that is built to last and cheap to maintain.The approach is based on whole system design. This means optimizing not just the parts, but the whole system.

BOC - Developing the hydrogen refuelling plant
Cranfield University - Systems simulation , on-board computing and control networks
Oxford University - Design and control of re-generative electric motors
QinetiQ - Developing the proton exchange membrane fuel cell
Morgan Motor Company - Building the finalised design using light weight technology
OSCar - Overall system design and architecture

open source benefits from :
Faster design: new designs can make use of the design work already done.
Reduced risk: new designs are based on proven earlier designs
Community: there is an existing and active community of developers which can be a source of advice and assistance
Reduced cost: much of the work has already been done
Increased functionality: it is easier to add new functions to existing designs
While the principle advantage of open source software - low or zero acquisition cost - is important, it is by far not the most important. There are many other advantages ranging from choice, flexibility, longevity, stability, security through to more general benefits such as community involvement and social good. There are also, naturally enough, disadvantages to open source