Will it have to be put away in the drawer of broken promises? The prospect of seeing circulating copies of the elegant hydrogen sedan imagined by Hopium seems to move away a little more each day. Created in 2019 by former racing driver Olivier Lombard, the French start-up announced this Friday, July 21, its placement in receivership. The company hopes that this decision will allow it “the continuation of the activity, the settlement of its debts and the reorganization of the company, within the framework of a continuation plan which will be presented at the end of a six-month observation period”.
Youngest winner in 2011 of the 24 Hours of Le Mans (LMP2 category), Olivier Lombard has not yet managed to snatch similar victory in industrial matters. In April, he had chosen to focus Hopium’s activity on the development of fuel cells, without ruling out the idea of producing his first vehicle sooner or later. Is the bet still feasible? Lecturer at the University of Bordeaux and specialist in the automotive sector, Bernard Jullien looks back on the setbacks of Hopium and what they say about the development of hydrogen for land mobility.
L’Express: Hopium has always enjoyed an excellent image. The start-up was backed by the former Minister of Transport, Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, who joined its board of directors for a time, and received an order for 10,000 sedans from Crédit Agricole. How do you explain that it is now placed in receivership?
Bernard Julien: We have indeed observed a phenomenon of enthusiasm from investors and politicians around Hopium. But just because Crédit Agricole buys a few cars doesn’t mean they’re already there! However, we are talking about hydrogen vehicles and in this matter, everyone in the automotive world seems to have thrown in the towel, with the exception of Toyota, which is pursuing relentless therapy. Furthermore, monetary policies have changed: interest rates have risen and liquidity is not as accessible. It is in these periods that the bubbles burst and that a number of cases reveal their fragility. This is what is happening for Hopium. The €150,000 car market is difficult, even if it is the only defensible one for the company. Despite its prototype, Hopium has not solved its technical problems, let alone economic ones.
So you consider that Hopium was a bubble?
On paper, the company’s arguments are very attractive: it’s about hydrogen, French production… But just because a company raises funds doesn’t mean it’s serious. Hopium recently announced to focus on the production of fuel cells. However, its leaders have not yet found support, which may mean that their solution does not impress specialists in the field… If the Hopium project had been attractive, it would have ended up falling into the hands of an equipment supplier or a manufacturer. This is the fate that automotive start-ups in France tend to meet. Renault, for example, recently chose to invest in the battery manufacturer Verkor.
Is it still possible that Hopium will eventually manage to produce its vehicles? The company had announced that it wanted to set up its first factory in Eure by 2025. Normandy has also granted it an exceptional loan of 2 million euros…
I am afraid that is no. A deflating bubble is also that: these are the hopes that are raised among local elected officials and the occupants of a territory, which are ultimately abandoned. Decarbonization and hydrogen in particular have fed somewhat crazy hopes in many regions across France. We believed that projects could allow territories practically devoid of cars or weakened to revive themselves, to find a new future. Alas, that is not what seems to be taking shape.
You are very critical of the potential of hydrogen in cars and mobility: why?
I think that this umpteenth appointment of hydrogen with land transport, and especially with the automobile, is being missed because a standard is essential: that of the battery. If you take the strategy of Volkswagen, which is a key player in the sector, it is electric on all floors, including trucks, coaches and buses. Recent regulatory and policy clarifications, such as that of Biden in the United States, indicate that the global standard will be battery electric.
This does not mean that the trajectory will be completely smooth: it is true that the growth of electric vehicles in the market is not so obvious, that certain vehicle launches are encountering difficulties… But we observe that the sales of battery-powered cars have exceeded those of diesel in Europe, and this, while the launches of inexpensive and high-volume vehicles, such as the ID2 from Volkswagen and the R5 from Renault, have not yet taken place! Even in niche markets, it will be very difficult to find a place for anything other than this technology. In addition, hydrogen is above all a file for industrialists, before being a problem for transport, if indeed that is achieved.
That’s to say ?
You can only make decarbonated hydrogen by electrolysis when you have too much energy. However, few countries have renewable energies in such quantities that they can afford to use some of them for electrolysis! The war in Ukraine did not help matters. Green hydrogen will remain a rarity. It will be used in priority where it is essential.
For you, the games are therefore made between battery-powered electricity and hydrogen?
The automobile is an industry of volumes and standards. In history, there has hardly been a scenario where a heavyweight in the sector has dissociated itself from the rest of the sector in its technical choices, except for the United States, which has reserved diesel for trucks. The population of hydrogen adopters and developers is shrinking. Even Toyota has announced that it is producing battery-powered cars. Battery power was adopted. As a result, this is where investments will be made and the most inventive profiles hired. An alignment of the planets will take place for the electric. Little by little, we will observe a desertion of the field on hydrogen for transport.