What it's like to drive a hydrogen car: We test the fuel cell Ineos Grenadier

15/06/2024

We took the prototype hydrogen fuel cell (FCEV) Grenadier off-road Ineos calls for a multi-powertrain future, with hydrogen in the next decade

Electric cars are the future, everyone is agreed on that. That's the mantra delivered to motorists being encouraged to switch to EVs.

But not quite everyone does agree the future of motoring is solely one of plug-in electric cars, some believe hydrogen fuel cells may have an important role to play.

Ineos, owned by bucaneering boss Sir Jim Ratcliffe, is already planning a rugged 4x4 EV - the Fusilier - but it is also exploring hydrogen power.

Freda Lewis-Stempel visited the Ineos Road to Decarbonisation event at Millbrook Proving Ground, in Bedfordshire, to put the prototype hydrogen fuel cell Grenadier through its paces on the off-road course.

This is Money tested out the prototype hydrogen Grenadier at the Ineos Road to Decarbonisation event in Bedfordshire last month

The hydrogen vehicle (left) is exactly the same as the petrol and diesel Grenadiers, except for that bulbus bonnet. The FCEV promises to deliver exactly the same world leading off-roading, without compromise on range like a BEV would

What is a hydrogen fuel cell car?

Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are the mainstream zero emission vehicles we see on our roads. But there is a lesser known zero emission electric car - the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle (FCEV).

Hydrogen cars, or FCEVs, are powered by an electric motor and are therefore an electric car (hence the EV part). But instead of being charged up externally, hydrogen cars make the electricity themselves.

Hydrogen from the fuel tank and oxygen react in the fuel cell to generate the electricity, which is then sent to the electric motor - so a hydrogen car drives like an EV.

Zero tailpipe emissions are produced - only water and heat - and if the hydrogen is green hydrogen then these cars are very environmentally friendly indeed.

Like petrol or diesel cars, hydrogen vehicles are refuelled at a pump, so some people see them as preferable to EVs because you don't have range or charging anxiety. But finding a hydrogen filling station is the tricky part.

Driving the hydrogen Ineos Grenadier

Off-roading is a rocky experience – you get thrown around no matter how good the vehicle. You feel the tracks, the drips, the ruts, the inclines, the gravity–defying descents - it becomes a form of communication with the vehicle and your surroundings.

But in the hydrogen Grenadier the off-roading experience has been transformed: you’re almost floating. The normal on-road EV experience of total silence, of gliding along feels like a supernatural sci-fi one when you expect to be bashing through the undergrowth.

I say total silence but there was a very faint high-pitched whirring which project engineering chief Pamela Amann explained wouldn’t be the case if the car came to market.

Intriguingly, this is something usually only female drivers can currently detect with the prototype (women can hear higher frequency sounds over 2000Hz).

In the hydrogen Grenadier the off-roading experience has been transformed: you’re almost floating

One-pedal drive controls the car, with the electric motors stepping in where differential locking normally would

The hydrogen prototype uses a 115K fuel cell from BMW under the bonnet – the German marque is building its own hydrogen iX5 car – and two 2kg hydrogen storage tanks in the ladder frame chassis. The hydrogen tanks will increase to six or eight if the car comes to market.

The battery sits in the boot (to be moved under the boot floor in a production model) and there are three electric motors which are shared two to the rear axle and one on the front axle.

Because it's so easy to drive, the FCEV would be a good option for a newbie greenlaner

One-pedal drive (for which there are three recuperation modes) is a part of the video game or virtual reality (not in a bad way) feel of the car; it’s so controlled because the electric software and hardware oversee propulsion. An electric motor steps in where a standard differential locking would on the petrol or diesel Grenadier, and the battery regeneration when braking acts as hill descent control.

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The target FCEV will have a range of around 370 miles, while the prototype has around 120 miles.

Amann said the production hydrogen Grenadier will have the same payload and towing capacity (3.5 tonnes) of the internal combustion (ICE) Grenadiers. Wading wasn’t possible in the prototype, but this will be fixed if the target car comes to market.

Only a few days before I'd tested the new Grenadier Quartermaster pick-up on launch in Italy, so had the feel of the diesel still in my mind, and the diesel, petrol Station Wagon Grenadiers were also at the event to hop between for contrast.

And the hydrogen is just as capable as the Grenadiers – there is no off-roading compromise as Calder promised. And because it's so easy to drive, it would be a great option for a newbie greenlaner.

But whether hydrogen infrastructure ever emerges on scale large enough to power this FCEV remains to be seen.

Will Ineos sell a hydrogen fuel cell Grenadier?

In July last year Ineos – the heavy-duty off-roader brand owned by chemical billionaire and Manchester united owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe - unveiled its fuel-cell Grenadier prototype at Goodwood Festival of Speed.

At the time Ineos Automotive CEO Lynn Calder told Carsales that the brand ‘didn’t do the project to not build it, but today in all good conscience it’s hard for me to build a car that I don’t think people are going to buy yet’.

The prototype is now ready to drive, and off on a world tour, but don't expect it to be available to the public anytime soon.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe unveiled the Fusilier outside the pub he owns - The Grenadier - in Belgravia, London in Febrauary. The Fusilier will come in two variants: A range-extender (REx) hybrid and an all-electric battery version (BEV)

Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Britain's second wealthiest man - according to the latest edition of the nation's rich list - recent bought a 25% stake in football club, Manchester United

Ineos Automotive CEO Lynn Calder says that the hydrogen Grenadier is part of the future, not this decade

The brand doubled down on not bringing a fuel-cell car to market anytime soon, with Calder telling us the FCEV is part of Ineos’ push to get the ‘government to look at multi-powertrain options’ for the 2035 shift to zero emission cars, but that ‘hydrogen (an uncompromised Grenadier) is a long way off’.

Currently Calder says that the ‘range-extender is where it’s at right now’ with the focus on the 2027 launch of the brand's electric Fusilier SUV, but that the hydrogen car will keep ticking over in the background as they see it ‘as part of the future, but don’t feel it’s this decade’.

Infrastructure – or the lack thereof – is the biggest reason hydrogen can’t take off: 'The infrastructure isn’t there’, Calder confirms.

Shell pulled the plug on hydrogen filling stations for passenger cars in Britain in 2022: The oil giant closed its three fuelling sites in Cobham, Gatwick and Beaconsfield

At present there are just six hydrogen refuelling stations in the UK, a number that’s shrunk rather than grown in the last few years – in 2022 there were 10 refuelling stations.

The government did recently give an £8m grant to Element 2 (a British startup) to build four hydrogen stations available to the public, but that's a very tiny drop in the H2O ocean.

Similar past efforts have failed: In 2022 Shell pulled the plug on its hydrogen filling stations, closing its sites at Cobham, Gatwick and Beaconsfield because the technology had 'reached its end of life'.

In comparison there are 62,536 electric vehicle (EV) charging points across the UK as of May 2024, spread across 32,992 charging locations.

And while Britain recently celebrated 1 million EVs on the road, there are just two hydrogen cars – the Toyota Mirai and the Hyundai Nexo - both of which you can’t actually order.

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Why build a hydrogen Grenadier when a Range-extender (REX) and battery electric (BEV) Fusilier are coming in 2027?

Firstly the FCEV is a long term option for Ineos customers which Calder promises offers ‘no emissions and no off-road compromise’.

Ineos says hydrogen is better suited to Grenadier-esque off-roaders than battery electric options because it’s lighter, doesn’t limit towing and you aren’t restricted in remote areas with a lack of chargers. The brand is lining up future uses for ‘emergency services, NGOs and border forces’.

At the decarbonistion event Ineos repeated its mantra from the Fusilier REx and BEV unveil that it wants to allow ‘customers to vote with their feet’.

Ineos Automotive CEO, Lynn Calder (left), told press at the launch of the Ineos Fusilier in February that the availability of two electrified powertrains means 'drivers can vote with their feet'

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Secondly, Ineos is a big player in the hydrogen world, and taking a live demo hydrogen car on a world tour is an embodiment of the multi-powertrain direction that would suit the Ineos Group as a whole, not just the car manufacturing arm.

Ineos Inovyn (a subsidiary of Ineos) is currently the largest operator of electrolysis – the technology used to produce low carbon hydrogen for transportation, industry and energy generation - in Europe. In 2021 Ineos invested €2bn in zero carbon green hydrogen projects, building plants across Europe.

As an Ineos Inovyn spokesperson said, ‘hydrogen isn’t new for Ineos’.

Hydrogen is a already part of the Ineos juggernaut as one arm of the group is currently the largest operator of electrolysis – the technology used to produce low carbon hydrogen for transportation, industry and energy generation - in Europe

With Ineos acknowledging that 'they've had conversations with Labour, but don't know what to expect', you could call the FCEV canvasing for hydrogen.

Ineos says it wants 'to get all the stakeholders around a table' for some 'joined up thinking' because the current 2035 ban and switch to EVs is a 'pipe dream plan with no strategy around it, and no idea how we’re going to get there'.

So Ineos wants, and has the production ready, to back hydrogen in a big way. And the Ineos juggernaut pattern from the past appears to be based on an ability to pivot – like building a hospital grade sanitiser brand during a pandemic or starting an automotive brand because Land Rover killed off the Defender.

The FCEV Grenadier is a bit of a hydrogen chicken egg situation.