Hopium Machina is a 1,000 km fuel cell luxury electric car

Hopium is a new automotive company from France, it believes the future of luxury electric cars belongs to hydrogen. The Machina is its first foray into the highly contested luxury car market and with a €120,000 price tag it clearly aims high - but does it offer an alternative to well established competitors?

Let’s start with the drivetrain because that’s where the obvious differences are. The hydrogen fuel cell sits at the front, there are two electric motors, one at each end that power all four wheels. The hydrogen is stored in two large tanks positioned centrally, almost like a spine of the car; there are additional, smaller tanks under the front seats.

The company did not reveal any specifics about the electric motors or the fuel cell itself but it claims the Machina has a total output of 486 HP. That’s enough to propel the car from 0 to 100 km/h in less than 5 seconds and onto its top speed of 230 km/h (143 mph). The claimed range is 1,000 km or 620 miles and the refilling takes less than 3 minutes.

The company claims that the advantage of the Machina is its weight - the car weighs less than 2,000 kg. For comparison, Lucid Air can weigh as much as 2,400 kg but Tesla Model S weighs less than 2,200 kg. Depending what Hopium means by “under” - if the Machina weighs 1,999 kg than it’s not as impressive as if it was if the car weighed 1,800 kg or even less.

The design of the car is simply beautiful, it has amazing lines, the wheel arches are broad and there is just a faint influence of Fisker Karma in the overall shape. The Machina is a very handsome car. The interior is classy with four individual seats and no large screens in sight.

Hopium is keeping quiet about many details of the car but the pre-orders have been open since last year and apparently exactly 12 months ago the company already had 1,000 customers committed to buy the €120,000 Machina.

The storage tanks Hopium uses are developed by Plastic Omnium and they are made out of composite materials. The tires for the Machina are bespoke and made by Bridgestone and in February of this year the company went live on the Paris stock exchange.

There are a lot of unknowns about Hopium but the company is pressing ahead regardless, it has chosen its manufacturing site in Normandy and it plans to begin manufacturing in 2025 with expected capacity of 20,000 vehicles. Let’s hope it all works out because Machina is one heck of a beautiful car and the technology behind it can offer a viable alternative - only if the hydrogen infrastructure improves.

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