BMW says in some countries, building hydrogen stations is easier than EV chargers
Hans · Oct 21, 2022 03:50 PM
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As the BMW Group widens its portfolio of battery electric vehicles (EVs), the company is also ramping its investments into hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) because it doesn’t believe that the vision of an EV-only future is a realistic one.
Speaking at the sidelines of the world debut of the Rolls-Royce Spectre, the first EV to be graced by the brand’s signature Spirit of Ecstasy ornament, Chairman of the Board of Management Oliver Zipse told Top Gear UK, “In this decade there will be a viable product from BMW with hydrogen. You will see that.”
“We believe in hydrogen for many reasons. We believe that – and I’m speaking now from the BMW side but that ends up being for every brand in the Group – if you want to ride emissions-free and you do not have a charging station, this is the only possibility we have.
“In some areas to implement a hydrogen infrastructure is easier than an electric infrastructure, for example in areas where you don’t have any connection to a power grid. For hydrogen you just need the tank. There will be instances in this world where you have that situation. Will that be the main market? No, it will not.”
Zipse has previously said that EVs are not a one-size-fits-all solution for every customer in every country, adding that in some places, it is easier to convert existing petrol stations into hydrogen stations than adding more DC fast chargers.
"You don't need your own charging infrastructure. You can convert a petrol station (to store hydrogen) in two days. The path to get there is relatively short, and unlike with electromobility, where you need connections to the medium-voltage grid, and you need a charging infrastructure for every car. That's a lot of work. That will work, but not as the only solution. This (battery EV solution) is going to take far too long. That's why we firmly believe in hydrogen. It will come and it will come at BMW, I am very, very sure of that,” said Zipse in a business forum in Germany last month.
In related interview with Bloomberg, Zipse said, “There will [soon] be markets where you must drive emission-free, but you do not have access to public charging infrastructure.
“You could argue, well you also don’t have access to hydrogen infrastructure, but this is very simple to do: It’s a tank which you put in there like an old [gas] tank, and you recharge it every six months or 12 months.”
BMW is working closely with Toyota to develop FCEVs.
The BMW X5-based iX5 Hydrogen Next prototypes will soon enter series production with technology borrowed from the Toyota Mirai, but the BMW SUV will feature fuel cell stacks built in-house by BMW using BMW’s own production methods.
When asked if there will ever be a hydrogen fuel cell-powered Rolls-Royce, Zipse said “I would never exclude anything.”
FCEVs are electric vehicles but instead of storing energy in a battery, it makes its own electric on-the-go by mixing hydrogen and oxygen inside its fuel cell stack. FCEVs don’t have a big battery but it will need several large high pressure storage tanks.
Benefits include high resistance to ultra-low or high temperatures, fast refueling (similar to combustion engines) but the producing and storing hydrogen is tricky as fuel cell technology is less mature than EV battery technology.
Once the problem of hydrogen distribution can be solved, FCEVs can be refuled in just 3 minutes, have a 500 km range, and zero tailpipe emission
As such, few companies dare to make any bets on FCEVs. Transitioning into battery EVs, which require a very different kind of expertise in chemistry and software, is difficult enough.
To develop FCEVs in parallel with BEVs is a task few companies have the resources to undertake. Only BMW and Toyota are actively working on FCEVs for passenger cars, while Mercedes-Benz and Geely are limiting FCEV research only to commercial trucks and buses.
Tesla’s Elon Musk says FCEVs are incredibly stupid, and critics say that electricity is all around us while hydrogen is difficult to extract, transport, and store.
What we now for sure is that nearly every grand predictions about EVs - market share, reduced cost of batteries, EV prices reaching parity with combustion engine cars, number of public chargers – have all failed to materialize.
Separately, BMW Group’s board member for sales Pieter Nota said in an interview with Nikkei Asia "infrastructure is not the same everywhere," adding that keeping its options open instead of betting everything on battery EVs is the wise thing to do.
"We do believe in the importance of various technologies - battery electric vehicles, also hydrogen and efficient combustion engines - because we don't want to put all our investment in one area," he said.
Unlike Audi, Volvo, or even Mercedes-Benz, BMW doesn’t believe in the demise of combustion engines, at least not in the pace its rivals are predicting, even though the European Union wants to ban combustion engines by 2035.
His boss Zipse said: “To say in the UK about 2030 or the UK and in Europe in 2035, there’s only one drivetrain, that is a dangerous thing.”
“For the customers, for the industry, for employment, for the climate, from every angle you look at, that is a dangerous path to go to.”
BMW forsees that although EVs are the focus today, it won't stay this way for very long.
“After the electric car, which has been going on for about 10 years and scaling up rapidly, the next trend will be hydrogen,” said Zipse. “When it's more scalable, hydrogen will be the hippest thing to drive.”
Over 15 years of experience in automotive, from product planning, to market research, to print and digital media. Garages a 6-cylinder manual RWD but buses to work.
