Faced with important losses, the French start-up must dismiss and set out in search of funds.
by Jean-Michel Normand
Barely launched, the Hopium adventure, the French manufacturer of hydrogen electric cars, is already looking for a second breath. Confronted with the accelerated pace of its expenses, the absence of turnover – its first model, the Machina, is not expected before 2025 – and the sudden reluctance of the markets, the brand, which is dreaming in tesla Hydrogen must urgently review its roadmap.
hopium, which recorded a loss of 9.5 million euros in the first half of 2022 and whose stock market price increased from 28 euros to 4.70 euros in eighteen months, will separate from Thirty of its 142 employees and go in search of new funding.
The company, which, in December 2022, appointed Sylvain Laurent, who came from Dassault Systems, to the post of Managing Director – the company had inducted last year Jean -Baptiste Djebbari, former Minister of Transport, President of its board of directors -said, addressing a rebalancing phase. Its leaders recognize that expenses, in particular the payroll, have grown too quickly and that the company did not obtain the funding it awaited. Hopium, which has already raised nearly 70 million euros, estimates that it should mobilize 200 million euros in the next two to three years.
The manufacturer says he is open to the arrival of new industrial partners to which he could “leak”. It also counts on aid in the Normandy – programmed in Douains (Eure), the construction of a pompous factory called “the manufacture of the future” is not called into question – and on those of the State, which provides to invest 9 billion euros in the hydrogen sector by 2030. 2>
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In parallel, the industrial strategy of Hopium will evolve. There is no longer any question of sticking to the production of the Machina alone, a luxury sedan with a power of 500 horsepower and an autonomy of 1,000 kilometers, which should be billed 120,000 euros. The company intends to enhance the fuel cell – capable of producing electricity from the hydrogen on board the car – which it has developed.
This could be marketed or produced under license to car manufacturers, heavy goods vehicles, light utilities, bus, or even rail equipment. The start-up, which ensures to have “two years ahead of its competitors”, does not exclude that its fuel cell can generate income from 2024, despite the very active competition of large manufacturers and equipment manufacturers to which it will have to face.
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