BMW to market hydrogen sedan sooner

[cincygoblue]

BMW to market hydrogen sedan sooner
Bi-fuel 7-Series cars will be ready ‘within two years’
MSNBC staff and news service reports
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11837613/


BMW gave notice this week that it is driving ahead with a luxury sedan that runs on hydrogen in a traditional internal combustion engine, saying it will be ready sooner than expected and showcasing a special engine and storage tanks at a U.S. conference on hydrogen.

BMW’s strategy is unique in the auto world in that other carmakers are focused on using hydrogen in fuel cells, which create electric power instead of burning fuel in an internal combustion engine.

The company said it would start serial production of a hydrogen-burning 7-Series executive car sooner than expected.

“We will present such a vehicle to the public in less than two years,” a spokesman said in Munich, Germany, where the company is headquartered.

BMW had said last year that its hydrogen cars, which emit only water vapor, would make their debut in 2010.

A few hundred to start
BMW intends to build a few hundred such cars at first. They will be able to switch between burning gasoline and hydrogen so that drivers will not be left stranded while the infrastructure to deliver hydrogen is built up.

Obstacles to hydrogen use in vehicles includes the lack of an infrastructure and the cost of extracting hydrogen from other compounds.

The ability to switch fuels requires two tanks and only the 7-Series will be large enough to offer the hydrogen package at first. BMW’s long-term goal is to offer hydrogen motors in all its cars.

BMW is also presenting a bifuel internal combustion engine and a hydrogen storage system this week at the National Hydrogen Association’s annual conference, held in Long Beach, Calif.

The engine and storage system are “pretty close to where we want to be,” David Buchko, a BMW North America spokesman, told MSNBC.com, and represent what “ultimately will go in the vehicles on the road.”

[ChevroletRevived]

Man, I hoped that GM would be the first out with an hydrogen vehicle available to the public. GM would sure have a jump on the competition (Toyota, anyone with their goody two shoes hybrids) and good press if they could pull it off. I guess this was coming though...

[surferdude00711]

BMW and, hopefully, GM will lead the Hydrogen revolution. They have had the most promising concepts, and most development.

[RamJet502]

I thought GM was the industry leader in this technology. Another lost opportunity.

[Proetus]

They are storing the H2 in liquid form at 10,000PSI @ -253ºC (boiling point of h2 is –252.88°C) and the range is still only 125 miles.

40% of the energy content of the h2 is used to compress it to that state.

[genjy]

Originally Posted by RamJet502

I thought GM was the industry leader in this technology. Another lost opportunity.

BMW has been working on hydrogen forever. It's pretty much all BMW concentrates on in terms of alternative fuel for the future.

[rmodys]

Cool, too bad GM can't be the first to sell this technology to the public.

[camaroman22]

i thought bmw was with MB and GM working on hybrids? or was that someone else...with someone else...

[86fleet]

This is the way hydrogen should be done- it is a better stepping stone from an oil based economy to a hydrogen based one becuase the design can use both.

[Stéphane Dumas]

Originally Posted by camaroman22

i thought bmw was with MB and GM working on hybrids? or was that someone else...with someone else...

they plan to work on a hybrid-battery project, I don't know if it will have a direct or indirect link with the hydrogen project however