VOA常速英语2016--生产更廉价的氢动力汽车

Welsh Company Promises More Affordable¹ Hydrogen-Powered Cars 生产更廉价的氢动力汽车

"Green" cars, powered by electricity from either rechargeable batteries or hydrogen fuel cells, are already on the market, but still too expensive for most consumers.

用充电电池或氢燃料电池做为动力的“绿色汽车”已经上市，但对大多数消费者来说还太贵。

While big car manufacturers are doing what they can to make electric vehicles more attractive to buyers, small companies, such as Riversimple from Powys in Wales, are working not only to build affordable eco-friendly cars but also to make us change the way we think about owning a car.

尽管大型汽车制造商在尽一切努力让电车对消费者更具吸引力，诸如威尔士波厄斯郡的Riversimple等小公司已经不仅在生产廉价的环保汽车，还在改变我们对拥有一辆汽车所持的观念。

Riversimple plans to make its two-seater Rasa available to drivers by 2018, but it won't sell them. Instead, the Rasa will be available by subscription².

Riversimple计划在2018年之前向消费者提供两座的Rasa汽车，但不准备销售它们，而是通过预约销售。

The car is powered by compressed hydrogen, which, in combination with oxygen from the air, produces electricity in the car's fuel cell. The only byproduct is water vapor³.

这款汽车将由压缩氢提供动力，其中的氢将和空气中的氧气相结合，在汽车在燃料电池里制造电力，唯一的副产品是水蒸气。

Besides being eco-friendly, the fuel cell cars get excellent mileage⁴.

除了环境友好外，这种燃料电池还能让汽车驾驶更远的距离。

"If you're looking at hydrogen, this allows us a very, very long range in comparison to batteries," said Christophe Mazur, a chemical engineer at Imperial College London. "So here, when we're using hydrogen cars, we can reach the ranges we have in normal petrol cars and fossil-fuel-driven cars — so, about 600, 700 kilometers."

伦敦帝国学院化学工程师克里斯多夫·马祖尔说，“氢燃料和电池相结合，就可以让汽车行驶非常远的距离。所以我们使用氢气燃料汽车，就可以达到普通汽油汽车和化石燃料汽车行程的总和，大约是600-700公里。”

With 1.5 kilograms of hydrogen, Rasa will be able to cover approximately 480 kilometers, with a top speed of just under 100 kilometers per hour.

Rasa汽车只需1.5千克的氢就可以行程大约480公里，每小时最高速度将近100公里。

But fuel cell cars still face one major obstacle.

但燃料电池汽车仍面临一个重大问题。

"As with all these things, it's a lack of infrastructure," said Darren Moss⁵, editor of Autocar magazine. "The government has pledged to build 12 new fueling stations, but if you think of how many petrol stations there are across the UK, and that's thousands, it's still a small fraction of what's needed."

汽车杂志编辑达伦·莫斯，“尽管有了这些优势，仍缺少基础设施，政府承诺建造12座新的燃料站，但如果想下英国全国有多少加油站，那是数千个，那么这只是所需数量的很小一部分。”

As the number of charging stations for battery-powered cars keeps growing, makers⁶ of fuel-cell cars hope the same will happen with pumps for their vehicles.

随着为电池动力汽车提供的充电站数量的增多，全电池动力汽车的制造商希望未来也有更多的燃料电池充电池。

1 affordable   

adj.支付得起的，不太昂贵的

参考例句：

• The rent for the four-roomed house is affordable.四居室房屋的房租付得起。
• There are few affordable apartments in big cities.在大城市中没有几所公寓是便宜的。

2 subscription   

n.预订，预订费，亲笔签名，调配法，下标（处方）

参考例句：

• We paid a subscription of 5 pounds yearly.我们按年度缴纳5英镑的订阅费。
• Subscription selling bloomed splendidly.订阅销售量激增。

3 vapor   

n.蒸汽，雾气

参考例句：

• The cold wind condenses vapor into rain.冷风使水蒸气凝结成雨。
• This new machine sometimes transpires a lot of hot vapor.这部机器有时排出大量的热气。

4 mileage   

n.里程，英里数；好处，利润

参考例句：

• He doesn't think there's any mileage in that type of advertising.他认为做那种广告毫无效益。
• What mileage has your car done?你的汽车跑了多少英里？

5 moss   

n.苔，藓，地衣

参考例句：

• Moss grows on a rock.苔藓生在石头上。
• He was found asleep on a pillow of leaves and moss.有人看见他枕着树叶和苔藓睡着了。

6 makers   

n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式）

参考例句：

• The makers of the product assured us that there had been no sacrifice of quality. 这一产品的制造商向我们保证说他们没有牺牲质量。
• The makers are about to launch out a new product. 制造商们马上要生产一种新产品。 来自《简明英汉词典》