Hyperion says it’s developed a hydrogen-powered supercar, now it needs money.

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With little greater than sketches and never totally baked prototypes, a crowd of electrical automobile startups have rounded up billions from buyers. Can that fund-raising engine drive a hydrogen-powered automotive?

Hyperion Companies Inc., a decade-old Los Angeles outfit, is getting into the race for speculative transportation capital at present when it pulls the duvet off a supercar that it says will flip oxygen and hydrogen into water and pace. The automotive will purportedly dash from a standstill to 60 miles per hour in 2.2 seconds and journey 1,000 miles earlier than operating out of gas. The speedometer will high out round 220 miles per hour.

“We’re proposing what the penultimate hydrogen car should be,” said CEO Angelo Kafantaris. “This car is meant to showcase the beauty of hydrogen.”

On a freeway, hydrogen is cleaner than gasoline and doesn’t require a large battery and the dear lithium and recycling complications that go along with it. However, producing the gas is pricey, each in carbon and {dollars}. Both gas-powered and electrical autos are cheaper to own and function, in line with a March report from BloombergNEF. And Tesla CEO Elon Musk has dismissed hydrogen autos as “mind-bogglingly stupid,” given how troublesome it is to make and retailer the gas.

To date, U.S. residents have solely purchased about 8,000 hydrogen-powered automobiles and gross sales declined last year. There are solely three hydrogen fashions to select from: the Honda Clarity, Hyundai Nexo and Toyota’s Mirai, all comparatively bare-bones sedans that value about $60,000. Not surprisingly, hydrogen filling stations are exhausting to return by. There are solely 44 within the U.S., virtually all in California.

There’s little proof that Hyperion can succeed the place Toyota and different auto empires have faltered. Kafantaris, 36, studied automotive design and beforehand engineered Matchbox automobiles for Mattel. The company touts at the very least six rounds of enterprise capital funding, however received’t disclose how a lot money it has raised. Production on the XP-1 received’t begin till 2022, on the earliest. In the meantime, Hyperion is searching for buyers.