Just launched, the adventure of Hopium, the French manufacturer of hydrogen electric cars, is already looking for a second wind. Faced with the accelerated pace of its spending, the lack of turnover – its first model, the Machina, is not expected before 2025 – and the sudden reluctance of the markets, the brand, which dreams of being a hydrogen Tesla, it urgently needs to revise its roadmap.
Hopium, which recorded a loss of 9.5 million euros in the first half of 2022 and whose share price fell from 28 euros to 4.70 euros in eighteen months, will separate its 142 employees from around 30 and go to the search for new funding.
The company, which appointed Dassault Systèmes’ Sylvain Laurent to the position of general manager in December 2022 – the company had installed Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, a former transport minister, as chairman of its board last year – claims to be entering a phase of rebalancing. Its executives acknowledge that expenses, especially payroll, have grown too fast and that the company has not gotten the funding it expected. Hopium, which has already raised nearly €70 million, estimates that it will need to mobilize €200 million over the next two to three years.
The manufacturer says it is open to the arrival of new industrial partners it could “lean back”. It is also counting on aid from the Normandy region – planned for Douains (Eure), the construction of a factory pompously defined as “the factory of the future” is not in question – and on those from the State, which plans to invest 9 billion euros in the hydrogen by 2030.
Headwinds
At the same time, Hopium’s industrial strategy will evolve. It is no longer a question of sticking to the production alone of the Machina, a luxury sedan with an output of 500 horsepower and a range of 1,000 kilometers, which should be invoiced for 120,000 euros. The company intends to develop the fuel cell – capable of producing electricity from hydrogen in the car – that it has developed.
This could be marketed or manufactured under license to car manufacturers, heavy vehicles, light commercial vehicles, buses or even railway equipment. The start-up, which it claims to have “two years ahead of its competitors”does not exclude that its fuel cell could generate income from 2024, despite the very active competition from major manufacturers and equipment manufacturers that it will have to face.
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