The official unveiling of the 2025 Extreme-H championship recently took place on the London docks. The series was made by the same group who created Extreme E, which the hydrogen series is set to replace from 2025 onwards.
The up’s and down’s.
Extreme E has been around for a few years now, beginning in 2021, with entrant teams owned by motorsport powerhouse names such as Nico Rosberg, Sir Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button, Carlos Sainz Sr. and even global teams such as McLaren and Andretti.
Engagement for the sport has grown significantly since the first season, with the 2023 season having 144.4 million viewers of the championship over TV and streaming, along with almost 110 million social media engagements.
Unfortunately, this growth in engagement and viewership hasn’t stopped teams from leaving, including noteable names of Hamilton’s X44 team, ABT Cupra, and Chip Ganassi Racing.
Other motorsports such as the Formula-E championship take battery powered racing to a much broader stage. The electric open wheel series reached 351 million social media engagements in march 2024, and 267 million television viewers in season 10 (2024) of the series.
So, what does hydrogen power have over electricity?
Engagement is key to any motorsport category, and having a newer technology such as hydrogen may bring more companies and organisations to the front of the category.
Companies such as Honda, Toyota and Hyundai have been working towards a hydrogen future since its rise in use 15 years ago. With the introduction of a new motorsport series it may bring these companies to the forefront of competition.
If the category is a success, it may bring bigger companies such as Volkswagen AG, Renault and Ford to create race and road going vehicles in the future using the technology put to use through Extreme H.
A new embark
The 2025 Extreme-H Championship will be the first ever championship where hydrogen is to be the fuel. Current Extreme-E team owner Roger Griffiths of Andretti, Legacy Motor Club co-owner Jimmie Johnson and Veloce CEO Dan Bailey have commended the new championship, prompting their potential position on the grid next year.
At the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans, four hydrogen powered race cars were on show in the H2 paddock, proving that the technology is not far from a common site at a race track. One of these, the H24 MissionH24, was able to complete one show lap of the famous Mulsanne Circuit. The lap was not timed.
Embed from Getty ImagesThe H24 MissionH24 at Le Mans, 2024.
Where do we stand? The advantages.
There are not many case studies of hydrogen technology in practice, but with the information available, it might not be a long road until the technology is commonly used.
The first somewhat successful hydrogen car to hit the streets was the Toyota Mirai back in 2014, with the technology at the time expected to take off in a similar trajectory as electric powered cars.
Embed from Getty Images2014 Toyota Mirai
The Mirai was renewed for 2021, and is one of two hydrogen cars for sale today, with its only powertrain-rival being the Hyundai Nexo.
The tank in the latest Mirai can hold about 5 kilograms of hydrogen when full. This is enough fuel for a comfortable range of 350 miles. In 2021, a new Toyota Mirai managed to do over 1000 kilometres on one tank through an independent test.
Embed from Getty Images2021 Toyota Mirai
The hydrogen technology is significantly lighter than what you may find in an electric vehicle equivalent, meaning that weight is another advantage to hydrogen power.
The hydrogen cells have a similar refueling time to a fossil fueled car, giving it a huge advantage over electric vehicles which can take significantly more time to charge up.
The disadvantages
The first and most prominent issue is the price of hydrogen. One kilogram is worth between £10 and £15, meaning that to get a full tank it may cost up to £75.
Another disadvantage which presents itself with hydrogen is the infrastructure. To build a hydrogen fuel station it can cost upwards of £1.2 million, before factoring the maintanence costs. As of 2024, there are 11 hydrogen refueling stations in the UK, with only six of them available to the public.
Hydrogen powered cars require rare earth materials to work, such as platinum and lanthanum. These materials bump the price within every step of hydrogen driving.
The infrastructure for hydrogen powered cars has not advanced much since the Mirai hit the road in 2014, with the first generation car only being sold in California due to it being the only place on earth with an infrastructure good enough for the car to succeed.
Along with this, the price of a hydrogen vehicle is more expensive compared to other cars it may rival. A new Toyota Mirai costs £64,695. With size category competitors such as the electric Tesla Model S and fossil fueled Mercedes E-Class having greater advantages in power, infrastructure and a lower showroom price, the market may not be there for hydrogen cars, unless the success and technological breakthroughs of Extreme-H can change that.
Writers opinion – will the technology work?
The technology is slowly but surely coming to the forefront of the market, in one way or another. Will this be through the use of motorsports? It’s too early to tell.
Casting our minds back to the dawn of realistic electric driving, with the likes of the Nissan Leaf, Citroen C-Zero and even milk floats, it took a long time for the technology to find that one major breakthrough.
The breakthrough was then put to work in the likes of motorsports, creating things such as the Formula-E championship. Heavy hitting brands like BMW, Audi and Jaguar have all been in the series and now field electric road-cars of their own.
Once that breakthrough was found, mostly thanks to Tesla and their supercharging infrastructure, the technology and growth of electric motoring hasnt really turned back.
Where else can the technology be found today?
There is already use for hydrogen power outside of motorsports, but still within autonomy. Buses across Germany use the fuel-cell technology, while company Amazon have already began swapping their electric powered forklifts for hydrogen powered ones instead, as their low-power use case is perfect for where the technology is today.
In essence, yes, I think hydrogen technology will work in the future. This is only if the breakthrough is found which is just as significant as we saw with EV’s. Electric motoring has been an experiment for the last 40 years, maybe hydrogen technology needs that testing time before it is a significant rival to electric and fossil fueled driving and racing.