BMW BACKS HYDROGEN

BMW has said that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCEV) could become the fourth pillar of its drivetrain strategy as it revealed the first technical details of its new fuel cell system.

The premium car maker said that a single powertrain solution would not meet all customers’ requirements and hinted that its SUVS could be among the models to benefit most from hydrogen-derived power.

However, it said that mainstream hydrogen-powered passenger vehicles were still some time away as the public infrastructure to support them was still insufficient.

Klaus Fröhlich, management board member for research and development at Bmw, said :“we are convinced various alternative powertrain systems will exist alongside one another in future.

“The hydrogen fuel cell technology could quite feasibly become the fourth pillar of our power train portfolio in the long term. The upper-end models in our X family would make particularly suitable candidates here.”

The German car maker outlined its plans for FCEVS as it revealed more details of the powertrain for its BMW i Hydrogen NEXT project – a collaboration with Toyota.

The fuel cell system generates up to 125kw of electric energy – equivalent to 168bhp – from the chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen. The vehicle accommodates a pair of tanks that can hold a total of six kilogramsof hydrogen, which can be re filled in around four minutes and offer“along range regardless of the weather conditions,” according to BMW.

The developmental drivetrain will be piloted in 2022 in a small series based on the current BMW X5 but a customer-ready vehicle will not appear until at least the second half of this decade.