Up Close and Personal with JCB’s Hydromax

This time last week, we had the extreme privilege to be invited to witness a test run of JCB’s Hydromax, hydrogen powered car with which they will bid to set a world hydrogen land speed record later this year.

We first saw the Hydromax car in an exclusive reveal at JCB’s World HQ in Staffordshire during a press event for conventional JCB products on May 12^th this year. The JCB-led project is being supported by Prodrive and Ricardo.

Now the car, which is powered by two JCB Hydrogen fuelled internal combustion engines, which produce a combined power output of 1,600bhp, is undergoing full testing at RAF Wittering in Cambridgeshire, which is where we attended to see the testing first hand.

The car is a fantastic feat of engineering with one engine mounted towards the front of the vehicle and the other engine mounted towards the rear. The engines, with two Xtrac ⁠gearboxes, are ​laid sideways for reduced height, this combination also improves the balance of the car overall.

On the day of our visit the car, which is driven by Wing Commander Andy Green OBE (63), who coincidentally also piloted the record breaking JCB Dieselmax version some 20 years previously, reached a speed of 177mph in third gear, a speed that is pretty close to the limit over the 2.7-km distance available on the runway at RAF Wittering.

The 32-ft-long four-wheel drive vehicle is trying to beat JCB’s existing record, which was achieved with the diesel engined variant back in 2006, where it reached a speed of over 350mph.

On the record run, it’s estimated that the JCB Hydromax will pump a bathtub of air every half-second through a titanium turbo compressor spinning at more than 150,000 rpm at nearly 300C. The car will consume just over 2 kg of hydrogen and produce 18 litres of water.

Talking about the cooling challenges they face Andy Green said, "To give you some idea of how challenging the cooling is ​on an 800hp hydrogen engine, the engine pumps around a litre of oil per second through the engine. It's got seven litres of oil and all seven litres go around the ​engine every seven seconds, half of that oil is there just to stop the pistons melting!”.

In addition, a 250kg tank of ice cubes supplies the cold water to keep the engines running cool.

Testing was set to continue over the coming weeks, with fine tuning and problem-solving taking place along with more test runs for the car itself.

Mark Richards is the principal engineer for this project at JCB, and he explained what it’s been like to work on the Hydromax programme.

“It's fantastic; we're essentially an off-highway equipment manufacturer in Staffordshire, and we do some wonderful things.

Twenty years ago, we did it with diesel to demonstrate when we launched our engine how robust it was. Since then, we've done the world's fastest tractor as well.

This for me is just like a next level up; we've just developed and put into production our hydrogen engines, and what a better way to demonstrate how robust they can be (than) by putting them to the ultimate test.

Everything is turned up to 11; it's a showcase of British engineering, and it's a showcase for JCB.”

Fine words from a man and his team who are clearly very passionate about the technology behind this project, and it does make one feel very proud to be British, and to see this famous manufacturer once more on the world stage breaking boundaries and records in such a stunning way.

With UK testing complete, the car will be flown to Bonneville, Utah, USA next month, where preparations for its record bids will continue on the Salt Flats. This will include an attempt to set a Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) world hydrogen land speed record. The FIA is the global governing body for motor sport and the federation for mobility organisations worldwide.

JCB Chairman Anthony Bamford has spearheaded JCB’s £110 million investment to develop hydrogen powered internal combustion engines.

And as we are seeing most recently, JCB diggers powered by the hydrogen technology are now rolling off production lines, the forward-thinking vision of the Chairman has certainly come to fruition.

All eyes will now be focused on Bonneville, and the challenges that lie ahead on the Salt Flats, once again putting JCB’s innovative products in the world-wide spotlight once again, it’s something I’m looking forward to immensely.   

Checkout this You Tube short video from JCB, which features the car sporting its black bodyshell.