God’s Own Supercar

by Eddie Alterman

The Ronn Scorpion isn’t just another 200 mph supercar — it’s also the first production vehicle to make its own hydrogen fuel. And did we mention it came from the mind of a minister?-

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Ronn Maxwell, a contemplative and compact 57-year-old West Texan, moved to Austin in 2002 to be a full-time minister. He had spent the previous 40 years of his life as a race-car builder, vintage-car restorer, and exotic-car mechanic, and he was ready to put down his tools and pick up the vestments. But a funny thing happened on the way to the megachurch, and Maxwell instead wound up building a supercar that runs on hydrogen.

On a trip to China a few years ago to consult for a bus manufacturer, Maxwell encountered the following statistic: There are 940 cars for every 1,000 Americans, 600 cars for every 1,000 Europeans, and just 8 cars for every 1,000 Chinese. “It was sort of an epiphany,” he says. “I knew that the Chinese wanted to get to where we are. But there’s no way the world can sustain another billion carbon-burning cars.”

Maxwell got back to Texas and started thinking about applying his car-building expertise toward a solution, either an electric or a solely hydrogen-powered vehicle. “But,” he says, “I wanted a car people could drive now.”

In his head were the seeds of the Scorpion supercar. It would run on gasoline, but also produce hydrogen onboard, in real time, which would be injected into the car’s cylinders. The result? More power, better fuel efficiency, and fewer toxic emissions. He’d seen the technology used in large-scale generators before, but never in an automotive application. As such, the Scorpion would be a missing link between today’s gas cars and the hydrogen-fuel-cell cars of the ever-receding future.

Maxwell needed only 13 months to make the car a reality. He ordered Acura engines through a buddy’s dealership in Dallas. The company he hired to assemble the Scorpion’s chassis and body, California-based Metal­crafters, worked on only 30 days’ notice because it had a spot open. Maxwell even skipped a step. “Usually you go from computer renderings to a full-size clay model to the real prototype, but I bypassed the clay stage and everything still lined up perfectly,” he says. “It was spooky how it all fell into place.” Thy will be done, Maxwell.

A battery-size unit in the Scorpion fractures water into hydrogen and oxygen via electrolysis — chemistry you did in middle school. Most internal combustion engines convert about two-thirds of their hydrocarbons into power; the rest get tossed as exhaust. But hydrogen, when injected into the engine, bonds to lingering carbon molecules, allowing them to burn in the cylinder. Voilà! — up to one-third more horsepower and virtually no emissions. Plus, Maxwell claims, the car gets 40 mpg on the highway. Your typical Lamborghini gets 14.

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