ANDY GREEN SETS HYDROGEN LAND-SPEED RECORD AT 406 MPH

Andy Green, a British driver and former Royal Air Force pilot, established a new world record for hydrogen-powered vehicles by reaching 406.320 mph (653.908 kph) at Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats on Tuesday. The 32-foot vehicle, developed by British industrial machinery maker JCB, was propelled by twin hydrogen internal combustion engines producing 1,600 horsepower combined. The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, motorsport's global governing authority, confirmed the achievement as a new benchmark for the vehicle class.

The engines operated by blending compressed hydrogen gas with air before ignition. Green previously set a diesel land-speed record of 350.092 mph at Bonneville in 2006, and has described hydrogen as the "fuel of the future". The hydrogen run comfortably exceeded the prior hydrogen combustion record of 185.5 mph, which had stood unchallenged. The demonstration took place across the salt crust surface widely recognised as one of the world's premier testing grounds for speed records.

Green remains the only person to exceed the speed of sound on land, an achievement he accomplished in 1997 using jet propulsion in the vehicle Thrust SSC, which reached 763.035 mph across Nevada's Black Rock Desert. The current hydrogen record falls well short of that absolute land-speed record. Green's latest achievement demonstrates practical hydrogen technology applications in high-performance engineering, marking a milestone in the testing and development of alternative propulsion systems.