Is NamX about to become the Tesla of Hydrogen?

For Pininfarina to come to this year’s Paris Motor Show with a brace of zero-emissions cars is something you likely expected. But just how one of the cars achieves it is something you probably didn’t.

NamX – a Franco-Moroccan outfit we’re frankly astonished you haven’t heard of already – has tasked Pininfarina with all that pencils and clay models malarkey for its big idea: a fuel cell vehicle (available with either 300bhp or 500bhp) with a fixed hydrogen tank, as well as six removable and replaceable hydrogen ‘capsules’.

With the tank and capsules full, the NamX HUV can manage 800km before needing a fresh hit of gas. However, if you can’t get to a hydrogen filling station, you can run on the six capsules alone, which gives you 300km of range.

The real innovation here then is NamX’s distribution pods – a honeycomb cabinet-type-thing that holds the capsules, costs just £5k for a small one and around £20k for a big one (whereas it costs anywhere from £1m to £5m to build a hydrogen filling station from scratch), and can be placed anywhere from fuel station forecourts to supermarket car parks. There’s only a handful of H2 filling stations anywhere at the moment, and it’s this lack of infrastructure, despite the fuel cell tech being mature, that’s ultimately strangling demand. NamX may have solved this in one fell swoop.

The idea is that the capsules are filled at small central filling stations then delivered to the pods in hydrogen-powered trucks. The portability of the distribution pods means they can easily be moved around to wherever there’s most demand, too.

NamX also says it wants to license the technology so other companies can build stuff that’s compatible with the capsules, like scooters or generator. It’s such a simple solution, and one that – like the other big selling points of hydrogen – is largely down to how well it integrates with systems and processes we already know and use. Fuel still gets delivered, gas bottles still get swapped, and the new car/tractor/quad bike still runs – albeit a sight more quietly.

For companies to persist with hydrogen fuel cells is something we’ve rather come to expect. But just how NamX is planning to get it done is something we didn’t. Keep your eyes peeled for the NamX car launching in 2025, and all being well, the capsule stations launching around the same time.