Faouzi Annajah, son of a Moroccan worker who worked more than thirty years at the French manufacturer Renault, unveiled on Wednesday May 12, in Turin (Italy) the fruit of four years of work. This is NamX, the prototype of a new premium automobile brand, a hydrogen SUV that he created with various European and Moroccan partners, including the Italian designer Pininfarina who has already worked for big names like Ferrari.
With this opportunity to be able to collaborate with Pininfarina, this young 29-year-old Franco-Moroccan entrepreneur is quite simply privileged in the automotive sector. Peugeot had this honor, notably with the 404 Pininfarina Cabriolet.
It must also be said that the young Faouzi Annajah, of Moroccan parents, has always lived in the automotive world. His father worked for more than 35 years at Renault. Entrepreneur at heart, he who owns a portfolio of several startups, has already worked for the German car manufacturer Volkswagen and has a background in the automotive industry. For the Franco-Moroccan, the automobile has been his passion since a young age.
Today, Faouzi Annajah is a proud man. His young industrial and technological project, NamX, has received support from Pininfarina. It was at the headquarters of this Italian design house that he presented the prototype of his HUV, “the first car in the world powered in part by a patented system of removable tanks that promises a paradigm shift in the experience of clean mobility and widespread access to hydrogen”.
“The HUV is a hydrogen-powered SUV with pure, muscular lines whose main tank is supplemented with a set of six capsules for a total range of up to 800 kilometres. The use of capsules as secondary reservoirs is a breakthrough innovation that paves the way for the large-scale deployment of hydrogen for private vehicles through a new model of fully decentralized and on-demand energy distribution”, emphasizes NamX, in a statement. The NAMX HUV takes place in a large-scale industrial and technological project whose ambition is to reconcile human mobility and the preservation of the environment by means of green hydrogen, adds the same source.
Faouzi Annajah co-founded NamX with designer Thomas de Lussac. The two intend to carry out this project from start to finish by bringing together the actors of the sector, by articulating the best of existing technologies and by inventing the solutions that are still lacking. “Born from the vision of its two founders, the project brings together partners from Africa and Europe, driven by the conviction that hydrogen will tomorrow be at the heart of the Euro-Mediterranean equation and wishing to combine the forces and federate the ecosystem. These experts have worked to build in-depth relationships with several industrial and technological partners which will make it possible, from 2023, to initiate the development phase of the HUV”, we are assured in the press release.
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Faouzi Annajah has not forgotten his origins, the Namx project intends to set up production plants, particularly between Europe and Morocco. The founders of NamX are well surrounded, in particular by Pierre-Yves Geels, former vice-president of Matra, or Alain Diboine, former director of the R&D division at Renault, Mustapha Mokass, expert in clean energies and carbon finance, former member of the United Nations Environmental Program and the World Bank, Raphaël Schoentgen, former President of Hydrogen Europe and international hydrogen expert, or even Ibrahima Sissoko, founder of nearly 30 companies on three continents, according to the communicated.
On the price side, the HUV, according to the press release, will be marketed in two different versions: an entry-level rear-wheel drive version with a power of 300hp for a top speed of 200 km/h regulated and an acceleration of 0 to 100 km/h in 6.5 seconds; a four-wheel-drive GTH version with 550 hp for a top speed of 250 km/h regulated and acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h in 4.5 seconds. The HUV will be marketed from Q4 2025 with a price range of between 65,000 and 95,000 euros depending on the options selected.