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Le Mans MissionH24: H24EVO ditches hydrogen gas for liquid hydrogen 💦🏎️⚡️ Motorsport has never been short on innovation, but MissionH24’s latest play might just be its boldest yet. In a statement at this year’s Hyvolution Paris 2025, the team confirmed that its H24EVO prototype – designed to showcase hydrogen’s potential at events like the 24 Hours of Le Mans – will swap high-pressure gaseous tanks for cryogenic liquid hydrogen. It’s an advancement that, on the surface, sounds like a mere technicality. In reality, it’s rather a huge step toward making hydrogen racing really competitive. Why liquid hydrogen over gas? For starters, liquid hydrogen carries nearly double the energy density in the same tank volume than gaseous hydrogen. The H24EVO was originally designed around two tanks at 700 bar, holding a total of 7.8kg. By cooling the hydrogen to about -253°C, the team expects to store up to 14kg of fuel – nearly doubling capacity. Put simply, that means more laps before refuelling and the kind of range endurance racing demands. Pierre Fillon, ACO President said: “MissionH24, with the H24EVO, is now embarking on a crucial new phase with a dual challenge: to engage liquid hydrogen in competition and to rival the competition from conventional combustion engines. This mission is essential to achieve zero CO2”. Underneath the H24EVO’s sleek bodywork, there’s a 300kW Symbio fuel cell (though it’s capable of peaking closer to 650kW or about 870hp with help from a high-voltage battery). The car’s being built to deliver speed and handling on par with established GT3 cars. MissionH24 is targeting a top speed in the region of 340km/h (over 210 mph). That’s seriously quick by any measure and puts hydrogen tech in a real-world context against the best combustion-powered machinery. Yet for all the talk about top speeds, what truly matters is lap time consistency, pit-stop strategy, and reliability across hours of race conditions. By carrying more fuel onboard, the H24EVO should spend fewer minutes parked in the pits and more time out on track – exactly what you want in endurance racing. The revised timeline calls for design finalisation around May 2025. After that, the car will make a public appearance at Le Mans in... Read the full article for free at Driving Hydrogen: https://h2.news/lemansmh24 For those keen to stay ahead of the curve, follow Driving Hydrogen® for all the latest. #MissionH24 #H24EVO #LeMans #HydrogenMotorport #24HoursOfLeMans #Symbio #DrivingHydrogen

Why liquid hydrogen over gas? For starters, liquid hydrogen carries nearly double the energy density in the same tank volume than gaseous hydrogen. The H24EVO was originally designed around two tanks at 700 bar, holding a total of 7.8kg. By cooling the hydrogen to about -253°C, the team expects to store up to 14kg of fuel – nearly doubling capacity. Put simply, that means more laps before refuelling and the kind of range endurance racing demands. Pierre Fillon, ACO President said: “MissionH24, with the H24EVO, is now embarking on a crucial new phase with a dual challenge: to engage liquid hydrogen in competition and to rival the competition from conventional combustion engines. This mission is essential to achieve zero CO2”. #LH2 #LiquidHydrogen #Hydrogen

In the world of hydrogen, liquid vs. compressed is a hot topic. While liquid hydrogen offers predictability in industrial and racing contexts, compressed gas is likely to dominate the B2C market for the foreseeable future due to high liquid production costs and boil out losses as liquid hydrogen evaporates to gas. Other factors like the required infrastructure, are far more developed for compressed hydrogen. What are your thoughts on the future of hydrogen storage? #hydrogen #energy #innovation #technology

Le Mans MissionH24: H24EVO ditches hydrogen gas for liquid hydrogen Motorsport has never been short on innovation, but MissionH24’s latest play might just be its boldest yet. “In a statement at this year’s Hyvolution Paris 2025, the team confirmed that its H24EVO prototype – designed to showcase hydrogen’s potential at events like the 24 Hours of Le Mans – will swap high-pressure gaseous tanks for cryogenic liquid hydrogen. It’s an advancement that, on the surface, sounds like a mere technicality. In reality, it’s rather a huge step toward making hydrogen racing really competitive. Why liquid hydrogen over gas? For starters, liquid hydrogen carries nearly double the energy density in the same tank volume than gaseous hydrogen. The H24EVO was originally designed around two tanks at 700 bar, holding a total of 7.8kg. By cooling the hydrogen to about -253°C, the team expects to store up to 14kg of fuel – nearly doubling capacity. Put simply, that means more laps before refuelling and the kind of range endurance racing demands. Pierre Fillon, ACO President said: “MissionH24, with the H24EVO, is now embarking on a crucial new phase with a dual challenge: to engage liquid hydrogen in competition and to rival the competition from conventional combustion engines. This mission is essential to achieve zero CO2”. Performance on par with GT3 Underneath the H24EVO’s sleek bodywork, there’s a 300kW Symbio fuel cell (though it’s capable of peaking closer to 650kW or about 870hp with help from a high-voltage battery). The car’s being built to deliver speed and handling on par with established GT3 cars. MissionH24 is targeting a top speed in the region of 340km/h (over 210 mph). That’s seriously quick by any measure and puts hydrogen tech in a real-world context against the best combustion-powered machinery. Yet for all the talk about top speeds, what truly matters is lap time consistency, pit-stop strategy, and reliability across hours of race conditions. By carrying more fuel onboard, the H24EVO should spend fewer minutes parked in the pits and more time out on track – exactly what you want in endurance racing. What happens next The revised timeline calls for design finalisation around May 2025. After that, the car will make a public appearance at Le Mans in June, before the bench-testing phase kicks off in October. If all goes according to plan, the team will assemble a full-scale, track-ready prototype by February 2026. The real milestone comes in April 2026, when the H24EVO is expected to roll out onto a circuit for its first tests with liquid hydrogen in the tank. ACO President Pierre Fillon calls this “a crucial new phase” for the MissionH24 program, which is hoping to establish a hydrogen class in the FIA World Endurance Championship by 2028. That’s just a handful of seasons away – enough time, they believe, to iron out”…continue Mexican Hydrogen, Storage & Sustainable Mobility Association (H2 México)

“AVL and Red Bull to develop high-density fuel cells for racing and aviation” Charlie Currie - Apr 16, 2024 “Red Bull Racing’s high-performance arm has partnered with AVL to develop ‘#ultrahighpowerdensity ’ #fuelcelltechnology to support the use of #hydrogen in #highperformancemobility , #motorsport and #aviation .” “Under a joint project, Red Bull Advanced Technologies and AVL hope to deliver a #PEMfuelcellsystem for #highperformanceapplications “that exceeds those currently available” globally.” “Leveraging AVL’s portfolio of #PEMfuelcelltechnology and Red Bull’s methodologies in lightweight design, construction and aerodynamics, the pair anticipate the solution could be two-thirds lighter than conventional #fuelcell systems” “Initial investigations have indicated the developed solution could achieve 6kW/kg at a stack level and 2kW/kg on a fuel cell system level, which the duo believe could result in “the world’s highest #gravimetricpowerdensity PEM fuel cell system.”” “The developed system is hoped to come as a “significant milestone” for #NetZerocarbontechnology , to enable sectors including #aerospace , motorsport and more to embrace hydrogen.” “Rob Gray, Technical Director at Red Bull Advanced Technologies, added the collaboration showed the benefits of applying “cutting edge #F1 inspired #engineering ” in solving “real-world problems.”” “In 2021, Red Bull Advanced Technologies joined forces to develop the chassis for a #hydrogenpoweredracingcar set to take place in 2024’s 24 Hours of #LeMansendurancerace .” “Just last year (2023), the #FIA and #ExtremeE signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish a pathway for #hydrogenoffroadracing (#ExtremeH) to become an #FIAChampionship in its inaugural 2025 season.” “While Symbio was named as the fuel cell provider for the 2025 championships, hydrogen technology has been well within the sights of the FIA as it looks to enable a #cleanfuture for #motorsport .” “Having approved outlined safety regulations for #hydrogenpoweredvehicles in its #InternationalSportingCode in 2020, earlier this year, the FIA said it would focus efforts on developing and promoting #liquidhydrogen storage solutions across different disciplines and competitions.” https://lnkd.in/e3s3he_t? Source- original post Read all my posts #MariusPreston

Hydrogen is muscling in on the EV in the Extreme E off road electric racing series. The Pioneer 25 hydrogen fuel cell-powered race car is now the world’s first hydrogen off-road racing championship after a win in England in June. Extreme E founder Alejandro Agag believes the significance of transitioning to hydrogen must be understood within the larger context of the energy transition.  I agree with him that passenger cars are not a target market, but buses and high use trucks are the sweet spot for hydrogen in transportation. #ANDnotOR https://lnkd.in/e5SChcGx

🏁 𝗗𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝗗𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗠𝗼𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝟮𝟬𝟯𝟱 - Practice | Part 𝟯 of 𝟱 𝘽 𝗦𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗙𝗶𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗠𝗼𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 1️⃣ Warm-Up - Motorsport and Sustainability 2️⃣ Media Day - The Role of Motorsport 🟥 Practice - Sustainable Tech Fit for Motorsport 4️⃣ Qualifying - Sustainable Race Car Projects 5️⃣ Grand Prix - What will 2035 in Motorsport look like? Having looked at sustainable ways of powering race cars in the #future and weighed advantages and disadvantages of battery electric, #hydrogen  fuel cell, hydrogen combustion, e-Fuel combustion - which technology is best suited to power the race car of tomorrow? From an #engineering point of view, the answer seems rather simple. Battery-electric offers the highest efficiency in terms of energy that is actually used to propel the car forward. As I already discussed in Part 2 of this deep dive, there are however also the factors of marketing, image and commercialisation to be considered. If we take it as a given that combustion engines need to stay for those reasons, the obvious choice is a hydrogen engine. It would be more efficient than an #e-fuel which is just a conventional fuel like petrol except produced totally without fossil sources but at the expense of energy efficiency.   However, using hydrogen as fuel leaves other technical problems: Hydrogen has an extremely high energy density, which means it can explode much easier than petrol. To fit in a race car, it would have to be liquid, which means cooling it down to -253 °C. Severe additional safety measures to protect the fuel tank during a crash or to make refuelling at speed safe would have to be taken. A small hydrogen combustion engine paired with a battery and electric motors could form a powerful #hybrid power train. I believe if technical development is focused on making hydrogen as a combustion fuel source work, this could be the future of motorsport in 2035.   

James Morris's latest piece for Forbes shines a very bright light on what looks like opportunistic greenwashing by the folk at WRC. Even if the fuel is really fully sustainable (which, by its nature, does not mean zero emissions), it does nothing to change the inefficiency of the ICE drive train. That in turn means that the source-to-tarmac inefficiencies of 'sustainable' fuel in standard combustion powered vehicles is broadly the same as green hydrogen fuel cells: all pretty rubbish vs. BEVs. It's hard to imagine that a BEV couldn't be used in WRC: the stage distances aren't huge and fast recharging would allow cars to be ready for subsequent stages, so it doesn't feel like a practical limitation - so could there be a vested interest in the success of sustainable fuels, perhaps 🙄 If they really believe BEVs can't compete, why not open the door and let them in???

The next-generation hydrogen prototype that will pave the way for the introduction of the zero-emissions fuel at the Le Mans 24 Hours by 2028 has been unveiled ❗ Maximum power output is now 650kW or 872bhp rather than the 350kW (470bhp) of the previous-generation car and weight has been reduced from 1480 to 1300kg.  Significantly the power density of its hydrogen-electric powertrain is 50% higher than before.  The MissionH24 project aims to showcase hydrogen as an alternative fuel in motorsport and help lay down a framework for its use in sportscar racing.  Le Mans organiser the ACO will allow hydrogen-powered machinery using either fuel cell or combustion technology from 2027 and is expecting the first cars to arrive on the grid the following year.  👇 https://lnkd.in/drRzjAZf

Is This the Future of Supercars - Welcome to Alpenglow Hy4. Alpine's latest car, the Alpenglow Hy4, marks a pretty bold step into the future of automotive technology. This hydrogen-combustion supercar shows the performance potential of hydrogen but also looks at a shift in supercar engineering. The Alpenglow Hy4 is a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine, fuelled by hydrogen from high-pressure tanks. This innovative powerplant, capable of revving to 7000rpm and delivering up to 335bhp, promises performance on par with its petrol counterparts while emitting only water and significantly reducing toxic NOx emissions. What sets this development apart is its potential impact on both road and track. Alpine's hydrogen technology is more than just a demo; . With plans to replace the current ICE engine with a hydrogen-powered V6, Alpine aims to compete in the 2027 Le Mans 24 Hours, marking a historic shift toward decarbonising endurance racing. Alpine also dropped a hint at the possibility of hydrogen-powered engines finding their way into future road cars. I think it outlines what path future supercars will look like but also raises questions about the future of supercar engineering. The viability of hydrogen combustion engines hinges on the source of the hydrogen itself. and advancements in battery technology will surely slow the allure of hydrogen. Nevertheless, Alpine's hydrogen technology represents an alternative in the pursuit of sustainable performance. So Is this the future of supercars? Only time will tell, but one thing is certain – Alpine is making sure its at the very front #Alpine #supercar #hydrogen