The Hopium Māchina is not just a new generation of luxury car. It’s the world’s first zero-emission, hydrogen-powered high-end car – and a tangible demonstration of where the mobility industry is heading.

Behind this technological marvel is French racing driver Olivier Lombard, the youngest winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race and founder and CEO of automotive startup Hopium. The company is on a mission to develop and commercialize hydrogen powered “green” cars from the ground up, and make this disruptive technology available globally.

Hopium is developing the Māchina and its fuel cell system in house, using the 3DEXERIENCE platform on cloud to support all its design, engineering, prototyping, and manufacturing capabilities.

“With the 3DEXPERIENCE platform on cloud, we have the right technology system behind us to deliver the power, capacity, resilience and efficiency we need to bring the Māchina to market,” Lombard said.

Cloud is the ideal fit for startup

Launching a vehicle like the Māchina not only takes a bold vision. As the vehicle progresses through the development stages, Hopium must be able to manage increasing complexity across its processes and keep track of everything going on. The need to build a true collaborative environment led the company to adopt the 3DEXPERIENCE platform on cloud.

The out of the box functionality and concurrent design and engineering capabilities within the 3DEXPERIENCE platform on cloud give Hopium all the tools it needs to bring its concept to life.

First prototype in 8 months

Hopium successfully developed its first working prototype in record time. This impressive feat of engineering was the result of the company’s ability to bring together multiple disciplines and refine the vehicle’s design and systems in the virtual world before building a physical version.

Using CATIA on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, Hopium discovered it could frog leap earlier physical prototyping stages and move to a more advanced prototype within a much faster time frame.

“The 3DEXPERIENCE platform helped us take risks and replace some physical prototyping steps by using modeling, simulations and validating concepts on a virtual model. We accelerated our development and were able to go straight to producing an advanced prototype, said Anne-Perrine Porte, head of systems methodology and tools at Hopium.”