‘It’s Too Difficult’: Jeremy Clarkson’s Bleak Future Update
Jeremy Clarkson and the Hydrogen Rocket Car: A Simple Guide to a Big Speed Record
Who Is Jeremy Clarkson?
Imagine someone who has been talking about cars on TV for 40 years—that’s Jeremy Clarkson!
- He started small, writing car reviews for local newspapers.
- In the 1980s, he joined a BBC show called Top Gear.
- The first version of the show got cancelled, but Clarkson and his friend Andy Wilman brought it back in 2002.
- Together with James May and Richard Hammond, they turned Top Gear into one of the most famous shows on the planet.
- Later, they made The Grand Tour.
- In 2024, Clarkson said goodbye to TV car reviewing. He even said he wasn’t interested in testing the new electric cars everyone is buying today.
Important Point: Clarkson loves loud, powerful engines. But recently, he wrote a column in The Sun newspaper about something new and exciting: hydrogen power.
What Happened? The JCB Hydromax Breaks a World Record
A British company called JCB (famous for their yellow diggers) built a special car called the Hydromax. It doesn’t use petrol, diesel, or batteries—it runs on hydrogen.
The Record-Breaking Run
- Where: Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, USA (a huge, flat stretch of salt perfect for speed records).
- Who drove it: Andy Green OBE—the only person in history to drive a car faster than the speed of sound (763 mph in 1997!).
- The Car: 32 feet long, powered by two hydrogen engines taken straight from JCB diggers. Together they make 1,600 brake horsepower (bhp).
The Numbers
| Run | Speed |
|---|---|
| Run 1 | 400.623 mph |
| Run 2 | 412.135 mph |
| Official Average (World Record) | 406.320 mph |
Why This Is a Big Deal:
- Smashed the old hydrogen record: BMW H2R did 185.5 mph in 2004. Hydromax more than doubled it.
- Beat JCB’s own diesel record: The Dieselmax hit 350.092 mph in 2006. Hydrogen is now officially faster.
How Does a Hydrogen Combustion Engine Work? (ELI5 Version)
You know how a normal car engine squirts petrol into a cylinder, squashes it, and sets it on fire to make power? A hydrogen engine does the exact same thing—but uses hydrogen gas instead of petrol.
The magic part:
When hydrogen burns, the only thing coming out of the exhaust pipe is water vapor. No smoke, no CO₂, no nasty stuff. Just H₂O.
JCB’s Clever Trick:
They didn’t build fancy, one-off race engines. They used the exact same engines they put in their diggers right now. That means this technology is ready to work on real job sites today.
What Did the Big Bosses Say?
Lord Anthony Bamford (JCB Chairman)
“Twenty years ago we came to Bonneville with Dieselmax and showed what British engineering could do with diesel. Today we’ve done it again—this time with hydrogen. These are production engines, powering diggers right now. Hydrogen works, and it works today at the highest level with zero emissions.”
Andy Green (The Driver)
“Bonneville is the spiritual home of the world land speed record. The car was terrific—stable, strong, and fast. Setting a world record with hydrogen power, twenty years after Dieselmax, is a huge privilege.”
Why Jeremy Clarkson Changed His Mind
Clarkson used to hear experts say:
“Hydrogen will never work. It’s too expensive to make, too hard to move around, and too impractical.”
But after watching the Hydromax hit 406 mph with only water coming out the tailpipe, he quoted President John F. Kennedy:
“We choose to go to the moon and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
Clarkson’s takeaway: Just because something is difficult doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Hydrogen can work—and JCB just proved it.
Summary: The Big Picture in 5 Points
- Jeremy Clarkson is a car-journalism legend who retired from TV in 2024.
- JCB built a hydrogen-powered car called Hydromax using engines from their everyday diggers.
- At the Bonneville Salt Flats, driver Andy Green piloted it to a world record 406.320 mph.
- This shattered the previous hydrogen record (185 mph) and even beat JCB’s own diesel record (350 mph).
- The only exhaust? Water. Clarkson now thinks hydrogen’s “too hard” reputation might be wrong—hard things are worth doing.
FAQ: Your Questions Answered
Is this car something I can buy?
No. The Hydromax is a one-off land-speed-record car—like a rocket with wheels. But the engines inside it are the same ones JCB puts in diggers you can buy today.
How is hydrogen different from an electric car (EV)?
| Feature | Battery EV | Hydrogen Combustion |
|---|---|---|
| Refuel/Recharge Time | 30 min – several hours | ~5 minutes (like petrol) |
| What Comes Out | Nothing (tailpipe) | Water vapor |
| Engine Sound/Feel | Silent | V8 rumble & vibration |
| Range | 200–400 miles typical | Similar, but no battery weight |
Where does the hydrogen come from?
Most hydrogen today is made from natural gas (“grey hydrogen”), which creates CO₂. But “green hydrogen” is made by splitting water using renewable electricity (wind/solar). That’s the clean future JCB is aiming for.
Why not just use batteries for everything?
Batteries are heavy. A digger or truck needs to work all day, every day, often far from chargers. Hydrogen lets you refuel fast and carry less weight—crucial for heavy machinery and long-haul trucks.
Does this mean hydrogen cars are coming soon?
For cars, batteries are winning right now. But for diggers, trucks, buses, ships, and maybe even planes, hydrogen combustion (or hydrogen fuel cells) is a very serious contender. JCB just proved the engine tech is ready right now.
Final Thought:
A 32-foot, 1,600-horsepower, hydrogen-burning rocket car just went 406 mph across a salt desert, driven by the fastest man on land, powered by engines from a yellow digger. The only thing it left behind? Water vapor and a new world record.
Sometimes, the future looks a lot like the past—just cleaner.