Le Mans 24h Hydrogen Racing Category in 2024

Authors

V. Beaumesnil, Automobile Club de l'Ouest, Le Mans; Dr. B. Niclot, Win Innovation, Paris:

Year

2021

Print Info

Production/Publication ÖVK

Summary

Since its creation in 1923, Le Mans 24h race has always been leading automotive development and race to road technology transfer. The innovations that have been developed and improved through endurance racing are numerous and very famous. Today, the challenge for 21st century mobility is zero emission (for climate and health considerations). In Endurance racing, hydrogen is the natural candidate for a zero emission technology thanks to its high autonomy and short refueling time. Since a few years, ACO is convinced that hydrogen will play a key role in future mobility solutions and has defined its ambition: create a hydrogen category for Le Mans 24h 2024, able to win the race, to demonstrate the qualities of this technology in the most demanding race in the world. This presentation will summarize the goals and current status of this project: make hydrogen be competitive against gasoline and hybrid cars is a huge challenge and is unique in motorsport. We will explain the difficulties and key drivers of success which cover car technology itself, but also refueling infrastructure which must be very specific (More than 4 tons of hydrogen consumed during the race!) and of course safety aspects. The conclusion will highlight that the level of performance of components for those cars are very similar to what is needed for heavy duty transport. This makes mobility relevancy of this category a reality, and at the end the fundamental “raison d’être” of ACO’s strategy.

Number of pages

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