Olivier Lombard, the youngest driver to have won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, has announced the launch of a future hydrogen sedan, 100% made in France, which could travel more than 1,000 kilometers between each recharge.
"Hopium Machina": behind this mysterious name hides a future hydrogen sedan, 100% made in France, the launch of which has just been announced.
The first prototype is scheduled for 2021, but the idea is not to offer the next car accessible to all… Rather to demonstrate the quality of hydrogen technology.
At the origin of the project, Olivier Lombard, the youngest driver to have won the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
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"Do not ask yourself the question" of recharging
Two figures could sum up this somewhat crazy project: 500 horsepower under the hood and zero CO2 emissions.
Olivier Lombard, 29, now boss of the Hydrogen Motive Company, has been working on this energy for seven years.
"We offer 1,000 km of range and a three-minute recharge time, that's something that hydrogen technology can allow," he explains.
"These 1,000 km, that's roughly a Paris-Marseille, to no longer ask the question of whether we can recharge our car."
The first top-of-the-range sedan will not run until June 2021, but a new French manufacturer has already been born: Olivier Lombard has formed a team of ten people, with former engineers from Tesla or Porsche. .
"The idea of opium is to be able to work with this already existing ecosystem. But also to give an impetus to hydrogen", he explains, seeing his project as a showcase.
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The industrial phase will begin in 2026, when infrastructure is developed in the country and when costs have fallen.
For now the minimum price of the sedan will be 110,000 euros.
Hopium targets 8,000 sales by 2030, for one billion euros in turnover.