EHM: Developing Hydrogen Engines to Reduce the Environmental Impact of Transport
Efficient Hydrogen Motors (EHM) was envisioned when André Morin, a Bretagne, France-based pilot and mechanics expert, met Wilson Hago, a California-based chemist and physicist. The two men sought to commercialize a novel hybrid hydrogen engine system with a carbon dioxide capture (CO2) system.
Fast-forward to March 2022, when Didier Arénal, a business developer in Bretagne, France, became president and CEO of the start-up and brought together a team of PhDs and engineers from all over France. Today EHM is innovating hydrogen engines for the transport and mobility sector.
The company seeks to drive the transition to hydrogen through its patented breakthrough technology with redesigned combustion cycles and adapted materials. It builds high-efficiency, durable hydrogen truck, bus, and ship engines with zero CO2 emissions that surpass conventional hydrogen combustion engines and fuel cell engines at a competitive cost.
EHM plans vehicle-based tests for 2023 and is adding a production unit that will bring jobs to the Bretagne region. Ultimately the company plans to expand across France and Europe.
3DEXPERIENCE Enables Collaborative Innovation
The constant challenge at most companies is knowing who is working on what project, when each project is due, why delays occur, and how to identify and resolve problems. EHM soon learned that the cloud-based 3DEXPERIENCE® platform provides a cloud-based product development environment for efficiently working with people inside and outside your company, including customers, suppliers, and manufacturers.
The start-up chose to implement the cloud-based 3DEXPERIENCE because many of its engineers already used SOLIDWORKS®. The EHM team greatly benefits from the efficiency and security of collaborating virtually. Engineer Dimitri Percheval notes, “The fact that all the parts from the whole team are centralized in the same place, going to find them is so much easier and convenient. You can see if a colleague is working on a part or not thanks to the locking system [on the platform].”Engineer Pierre Guénot adds, “You have access to everyone’s parts in a way that’s very easy and quick, and also access to all the tools online without necessarily having to go through a long installation process.”
Based on permissions, users on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform can access live product content from any location with an internet connection via collaborative apps from a single framework.
CEO Didier Arénal concurs, “Also, each of us can concentrate on developing our innovations, and the fact that we’re on this collaborative platform, each of us can see the work of the others and keep moving forward.” Guénot agrees, “We can also very easily talk about the things that we’d like to see changed for each person’s parts and even make changes to it simply. It also allows our supervisors or project managers to easily see how we’re advancing and share their opinions on our parts.”
Affordable and Reliable Technology Helps Start-Ups Compete
“At any moment, we have the most up-to-date data on the platform,” says Arénal, “So we don’t have to worry about whether we are working on an older or the newest version. We are all using the latest version. The 3DEXPERIENCE allows us to have high-quality software that is affordable for start-ups, allowing us to be on par with the larger industrial groups leading the market today.”
If you’d like to learn more about how SOLIDWORKS and the 3DEXPERIENCE platform can rocket innovation and collaboration at your company, contact your local reseller.