Le Mans fans will surely recognize the name Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus. This is a constructor of high-performance cars which regularly see action in endurance events. Apparently, the company has also been performing trials on a revolutionary type of fuel that could give batteries a run for their money.

Glickenhaus is presently doing experiments on hydrogen power. While the use of hydrogen is not exactly new anymore, the New York-based firm is looking to eke out as much energy from the element as possible. To do that, it believes that cryogenic hydrogen is the way to go.

Cryogenics is the science of the behavior of materials at very low temperatures. And when hydrogen is cooled to a rather frigid -253°C, it turns into liquid. This is far easier to store than hydrogen in its compressed gaseous state, which is how fuel-cell vehicles like the Toyota Mirai do it. According to Charles’s Law, volume is directly proportional to temperature. The lower the temperature, the lower the volume.

Glickenhaus believes that since a given vessel can store a larger amount of cryogenic hydrogen than compressed hydrogen, there is a lot more energy that can be extracted from it. And it is currently testing this hypothesis on a modified version of its Boot off-roader. The prototype has a large rear tank that stores the super-cooled hydrogen that powers its fuel cells.