LORD BAMFORD

EVs are stealing the zero-emission limelight, but JCB's chairman is on a mission to prove that hydrogen has a place as a clean fuel for the future. Steve Cropley learns more

- Steve Cropley

Although his thriving global vehicle manufacturing business has never built a car in its 78-year history, Lord Anthony Bamford, owner and chairman of JCB, is proving to be a far more agile and effective researcher into hydrogen power for automotive applications than most of the world's volume manufacturers.

Bamford and a fast-growing band of specialist JCB engineers (150 at the last count) have designed and built a zero-emission, hydrogen-powered internal combustion engine in two and a half years flat. They plan to use it - and soon-to power the kind of construction and agricultural machinery JCB makes in more than 20 plants worldwide and sells through 2000 dealers.

The first serious discussions about a hydrogen-fuelled internal combustion engine began in 2020 inside JCB's Rocester HQ - at the instigation of the chairman, who was worried about the future. The company has now built more than 50 running pre-production engines and installed them in stationary generators, in construction vehicles, on test beds and even in a truck. More hydrogen engines are being built right now on JCB's regular, 440-a-day engine lines (the hydrogen units have distinctive, green-coloured blocks), and potential clients around the world have heard the message and are ready to buy as soon as JCB believes it has successfully ironed out the pre-production problems. JCB has already produced an on-site hydrogen refueller and believes engine output could start as early as next year, if promised fuel supplies are available in enough markets.

For this remarkable achievement, Autocar has huge pleasure in choosing Lord Bamford as the winner of this year's Innovation Award. For his part, Bamford insists he accepts it on behalf of his growing cohort of specialist engineers who, he says, "are so much cleverer than I am".