Can the world’s first hydrogen racing series, Extreme H, change electromobility?

Extreme E, the electric off-road racing series known for its environmental focus, has finally officially launched Extreme H, the world’s first hydrogen racing series. At a well-attended event on the “party deck” of the St. Helena ship, which the series uses to move its cars between race venues, the cover was pulled off the new Pioneer 25 vehicle. In a nod to the series’ history, the event took place in the shadow of Tower Bridge in London, anchored alongside HMS Belfast – the very place where Extreme E launched in January 2019. I spoke to Alejandro Agag, founder of Extreme E and H, at the launch event about the switch to hydrogen, which seems to go against the grain now that battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) are becoming more mainstream.

“The hardest thing was to have a working car because there have been many attempts to use hydrogen cars in racing and they were always tests,” says Agag. Hydrogen was experimented with at Le Mans this year, but only over a 13 km test track. “There was also a truck that tried to take part in the Dakar.” That vehicle overturned and was not allowed to drive the entire rally. “But our racing format is perfect for creating a platform around hydrogen and then growing from there and developing the technology. We have tested our car and it is great. We can now start building racing cars. The hydrogen ecosystem is moving because the championship has to be a platform for more than just hydrogen cars. We have the chance to become the house of hydrogen for the transition to green hydrogen. That is the role we want to play.”

Pioneer 25: A new powerhouse for off-road racing

At the heart of Extreme H is the aptly named Pioneer 25, an all-new car designed and built by Spark Racing Technology, who also make Extreme E’s Odyssey 21 car. At the heart of the Pioneer 25 is a 75kW (100hp) hydrogen fuel cell from Symbio, the series’ official fuel cell supplier, but this is supplemented by a battery. Despite the switch to hydrogen, the Pioneer 25 retains the thrilling performance you’d expect from a top-class race car. With a peak power of 400kW (550hp), the car can accelerate its 2,200kg car from 0-100km/h in just 4.5 seconds. The Pioneer 25 is also built to conquer challenging terrain and climb gradients of up to 130 percent.

But one of the biggest problems with hydrogen is always where it comes from. The dream is that it is “green” – electrolyzed from water using electricity from renewable energy. But green hydrogen still accounts for less than 1% of current hydrogen production. “We will try to use green hydrogen,” says Agag. “But there are other types of hydrogen that are just as good, like pink hydrogen made using nuclear energy. We definitely won’t use grey hydrogen – that would defeat the whole purpose. Maybe blue hydrogen.” Grey hydrogen is made from fossil fuels, usually by steam reforming methane, and so offers no noticeable improvement in emissions over combustion. Blue hydrogen, however, captures emissions from production and can thus reduce CO2 emissions, although generally only 85% of that is captured.

“One of the challenges of the championship is also developing technologies outside the car,” says Agag. “Transporting hydrogen is one of the biggest challenges, such as converting hydrogen into ammonia and then splitting it back into hydrogen. We will look at all of these things. Trying to transport hydrogen in a gaseous state is not practical because the volume is so large that it doesn’t work. We have to source it locally.” For this reason, Extreme E, in collaboration with Kaizen, has been using methanol to power its race tracks for some time. “The problem is that the St. Helena cannot transport methanol and people at the same time. The regulations for transporting ammonia are the same. You have to transport it on a cargo ship, but the St. Helena is a passenger and cargo ship at the same time. That’s quite unique. We have to get around a lot of regulations. Maybe we transport methanol or ammonia on a different ship.”

Exploring new partnerships through hydrogen

Extreme H would not be possible without the support of a strong partner. PIF, the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund, is the main partner of the championship in the E360 electric racing series, which includes Extreme E, Formula E and E1. Other key partners include ENOWA, Vodafone Business, Symbio, Siemens and Jackson Swiss Partners. In addition to announcing the switch to hydrogen, Red Bull has also become a direct sponsor of Extreme H. “Red Bull brings a great brand to the partnership,” says Agag. “I tried to convince Red Bull to get into Formula E or Extreme E, but they didn’t want to race battery-powered electric cars.”

This illustrates the highly partisan nature of the hydrogen versus battery power debate, in which Extreme H will now position itself centrally. “There are two sides,” says Agag. “There is the battery side, and then there are the people who don’t like batteries, who for some reason love hydrogen. Michael Andretti, for example, has been in Formula E and Extreme E since the beginning, but Mario Andretti, his uncle, doesn’t like electric cars. I met him in Miami and mentioned that I was participating in a hydrogen championship, and he hugged me. They think hydrogen is more of a continuation of what happened in the past. But I like both because they complement each other. For cities, BEVs are unbeatable, but for longer distances, hydrogen has some advantages.”

Extreme H is designed to spread this message and show how robust hydrogen technology can be in the most difficult conditions. “People hardly know anything about hydrogen and how it works,” says Agag. “Extreme H can be a good platform to explain how this happens, not only in the car but also outside the car, including the transport of hydrogen. We can show how we turn it into ammonia or methanol. We can explain how difficult it is to store it, what the challenges are in refueling the hydrogen, or how we can be a platform that comprehensively explains the potential of hydrogen. There is a lot of interest in hydrogen all over the world, but there is no platform like ours to talk about it.”

While the race venues for the 2025 season already seem to be better organized than for the 2024 Extreme E schedule, no details on hydrogen supply have been announced yet. “Hydrogen sourcing is a priority for us and we work mainly with ENOWA. We need to source the hydrogen in Neom, where ENOWA is based, and then transport it around the world,” says Agag. “But the electrolyzers and solar plants in Neom are not online. As soon as they are online, we will source the hydrogen from there.”

Extreme H will be primarily a test run for hydrogen supply infrastructure. “Most places won’t have the scale of Neom, but elsewhere, like Libya, Namibia or Chile, it will happen on a smaller scale,” Agag says. “We’re talking to different governments that have deserts and can then build solar panels or wind turbines and produce the hydrogen using that renewable energy and a water source.”

In the race to a greener future

Outside developed countries, which have robust electricity infrastructure, hydrogen could be more relevant. “Everything is complementary,” says Agag. “We now have a championship for electric boats, E1, but batteries for boats are meant for shorter ranges. A transatlantic boat with one battery becomes very complicated. You have to look for other solutions. Hydrogen offers enormous opportunities, but those for mobility are actually quite small. We will make hydrogen the core of this racing championship, but the big opportunity is to replace grey hydrogen with green hydrogen.”

“If you replace the grey hydrogen used today in industries such as steel and fertilizer production with green hydrogen, you could replace the equivalent of the emissions of France and Germany in one year,” says Agag. “That would be about 7% of global CO2 emissions, so a huge amount. This is where the big lever lies, and this lever definitely uses the same technology that we will use on a smaller scale at the championship.”

However, not all Extreme E supporters are convinced by the hydrogen vision. So far, eight teams have committed to Extreme H, with Lewis Hamilton’s X44 Vida Carbon Racing and Cupra pulling out at the end of the last Extreme E season. The latter in particular has no plans or interest in hydrogen technology. “I want to have 10 teams,” says Agag. “It’s always difficult to find racing sponsors and partners. But we’re opening up a new universe of potential partners for the teams, so I’m very optimistic that we’ll have 10 teams. Season 4 is a bit in the middle, a transition season. The media attention will come back.” However, Agag did not believe Extreme E could be shut down until Extreme H starts. “It would have been harder to start again.”

Whether or not you believe in the value of hydrogen for electric mobility, Extreme H marks a turning point in motorsport as the first series to use this fuel. The series will demonstrate the potential of hydrogen as a powerful and sustainable energy source. With the launch of the Pioneer 25, Extreme H is ready to deliver exciting racing while championing environmental responsibility as it has always done.

The Extreme H season is set to begin in April 2025, with further updates on teams and partners expected shortly. However, the groundbreaking Pioneer 25’s first public appearance will be at the Extreme E Hydro X Prix race in Scotland in July, followed by an intensive test session at the Island X Prix in Sardinia in September. “We’ll be showing a hydrogen car that will be tested in really tough conditions,” says Agag. “We’ve made the car very safe with the FIA. We’re ahead of schedule. Spark has done a great job. And we honestly thought we’d find even more gremlins in the thing, and it works very well.”

Agag is under no illusions that Extreme H will suddenly move the passenger car industry away from BEVs, at least in the developed world. “The ambitions of this championship go far beyond pure car racing, because the car industry is electric,” he admits. But it will be interesting to see how far the racing series can go in promoting the value and infrastructure of hydrogen as part of the global effort to achieve a greener future.