Why hydrogen is back on BMW’s agenda

Battery-electric cars might have all the momentum at the moment, but BMW will launch a production hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle later this decade and is building a fleet of X5 FCEV test cars to prove its point.

Sharing its fuel-cell with hydrogen technology ally Toyota, the BMW iX5 Hydrogen is in low-volume production right now in Garching, Germany, and will be released into select fleets in the second quarter of next year.

Like Toyota (as well as Hyundai and Mercedes-Benz, among others), BMW remains convinced that cleaner EV power won’t be enough to keep global temperature rises below 1.5 degrees and won’t work in every scenario.

The BMW iX5 will lead to a late-decade production car, but BMW has also hinted that it will be followed by at least three second-generation FCEVs in the 2030s.

Like it did with the MINI E in 2009, the iX5 Hydrogen will be part of a fleet of “a few dozen” test vehicles that will be entrusted to companies close to BMW and will never be externally sold or leased.

They are purely real-world prototypes to gather information for a technology that BMW, which previously dabbled in hydrogen internal combustion tech, believes is nearly ready for the public.

“Hydrogen is a versatile energy source that has a key role to play as we progress towards climate neutrality,” said BMW’s board member for development, Dr Frank Weber.

“We are certain that hydrogen is set to gain significantly in importance for individual mobility and therefore consider a mixture of battery and fuel-cell electric drive systems to be a sensible approach in the long-term.

“Fuel-cells don’t require any critical raw materials such as cobalt, lithium or nickel either, so by investing in this type of drive system we are also strengthening the geopolitical resilience of the BMW Group.

“Our BMW iX5 Hydrogen test fleet will allow us to gain new and valuable insights, enabling us to present customers with an attractive product range once the hydrogen economy becomes a widespread reality.”

The fleet of iX5 Hydrogen models being pieced together near Munich airport will be electrically-driven, zero-emissions SUVs offering 500km of range despite having a lithium-ion battery of just 2.5kWh.

That’s tiny compared to the 101.7kWh in BMW’s just-launched i7 limousine, though it is capable of delivering 125kW of power, constantly.

The iX5 Hydrogen’s fuel-cell, mounted in the X5 engine bay, delivers up to 125kW of power, which is directly sent to the battery that feeds a rear-mounted electric motor.

It carries two cylindrical hydrogen tanks, including a long one running the length of the X5’s transmission tunnel and centre console, and a shorter one across the body beneath the rear seat, giving it 6kg of hydrogen capacity.

All up, the iX5 Hydrogen boasts 275kW of power and can reach 100km/h in less than seven seconds on its way to a 190km/h limited top speed.

“The battery is one tenth the BEV battery in size and cost. It has lots of power, but not much energy content, because the energy is stored in the hydrogen,” iX5 Hydrogen project leader Dr Jürgen Guldner said.

“The whole thing weighs similar to a plug-in hybrid, but less than a BEV.

“The other great thing about the FCEV is that the driving range does not vary with the temperature. We use the exhaust heat from the fuel-cell to heat the car, not the battery energy.”

Misunderstood by many, FCEVs are effectively electric cars with smaller batteries and faster recharging capability, because they can be refilled as quickly as a normal fuel tank.

The major issues facing FCEVs are a chronic shortage of hydrogen filling stations and the groundswell of legislative and investment momentum swinging the way of EV technology and charging infrastructure.

And packaging large cylinders is difficult inside conventional vehicle architectures.

“At some point the combustion engines are phasing out and we are still improving them, but we probably need two technologies to satisfy all customers with zero emissions,” iX5 Hydrogen project leader Dr Guldner said.

“By the end of this decade, which is tomorrow in automotive terms, half of our products will be zero-emission.

“We have been working on hydrogen for many years. Things take a long time and you have to find the right time to deliver them.”

Hydrogen is talked about as an ideal energy source for long-haul trucks and heavy plant, but packaging problems remain with cars. But, Dr Guldner reminded, it has serious infrastructure advantages over EV charging stations, too.

“Renewable energy is generated when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing and that doesn’t necessarily coincide with when you need the energy.

“Look at the bigger picture, you need something to store the energy from the summer to the winter and to transport that energy over longer distances. Areas of lots of sun and high wind aren’t necessarily the areas where you need the energy.

“Japan started to talk to Australia to import the sun from there to Japan, through hydrogen. You can’t do that with cables.”

The Australian Government’s Renewable Energy Agency predicts that demand for Australian energy converted to hydrogen like this could top three million tonnes a year by 2040, worth more than $10 billion annually.

“To import renewable energy from the north of Europe with electricity is cumbersome, but you can do it with hydrogen. The natural gas pipes can transport five times the energy than the power lines can,” Dr Guldner said.

“It can use the infrastructure [the network of underground pipes across Europe] for natural gas, and by 2050 we probably won’t be using the infrastructure for natural gas, and that becomes storage capacity that can be used for hydrogen,” he explained.

While BMW has manufacturing facilities in the UK (Rolls-Royce and MINI have plants there), they haven’t received FCEV research money from the British government. Instead, that’s gone to its FCEV technical partner, Toyota.

The British government just approved £11.2 million to fund a prototype FCEV version of a Toyota HiLux ute as part of a £70 million pound zero-emission vehicle research push.

The project, run by Toyota’s British arm and engineering house Ricardo, will see the pickup’s 2.4-litre diesel engine replaced with the powertrain from the second-generation Mirai FCEV.

The plan is, as BMW explained, to create a vehicle that can be used with zero emissions in places that EV infrastructure can’t reach, and where range anxiety can turn to life and death situations.

The first prototypes will be ready midway through next year.

Hydrogen energy has become a talking point again thanks to the International Energy Agency (IAE), who’s 2019 energy transition report placed the gas at the forefront of the transition away from fossil fuels.

“All the German states have a hydrogen strategy, there’s a German strategy, there’s a European strategy, and there are strategies from more than 40 countries,” said Dr Guldner.

“Those 40 countries encompass 80 per cent of global GDP and they all have a hydrogen strategy. It’s coming. It’s inevitable.

“Twenty per cent of the energy used in the EU is zero-emission, but three quarters is fossil fuel and that’s where hydrogen will come in.

“When you look at all the different studies it’s clear that not all the applications can be electrified with battery-sourced electricity, and about half of what remains in 2050 is predicted to be hydrogen.

“That will leave 15 to 30 per cent of all end-user energy coming from hydrogen, and that is an enormous amount of energy.”

While the IAE report showed electricity could not replace natural gas in applications like steel and cement production, nor long-distance aviation, it did identify enormous potential in aviation.

“The transport sector is in the middle and it depends on the applications and the user to determine which form of energy is superior for them,” Dr Guldner explained.

“The majority of heavy-duty is probably going to be in hydrogen, because of the usability. The majority of passenger cars will be BEVs.

“But there are some customers that say it’s difficult to include a BEV into my daily use, or there are use-cases several times a year where I need the features of an EV but I want the flexibility in my life, to use it as I do today.”

The other upside to FCEVs is that they use fewer rare-earth minerals and exotic mining techniques, and they are easier to recycle.

“BEVs need a lot of raw materials, so having a second technology that uses much less of those raw materials, but rather ones with higher recycling rates, is a strategy to build up resilience and decrease dependence on commodities,” Dr Guldner insisted.

BMW also insists the whole-of-life use of EV and FCEV cars falls heavily in favour or FCEVs, and it’s not even close.

“The life cycle, too. When you look at the whole life cycle of the car, the picture is different to day-to-day.

“BEVs need a lot of energy just to build them, and while there are conversion losses to create hydrogen, FCEVs compensate for those efficiency losses by using renewables to convert the energy, and by being kinder on the environment to create and recycle.”

Italy has one hydrogen charging station and Germany has nine, but every country in Europe has plans for more, even if they are mostly planned for heavy transport centres.

But Dr Guldner insists that hydrogen infrastructure would be cheaper than most critics think, and far cheaper than EV charging infrastructure.

“Two infrastructures are cheaper than one, and that is counter intuitive,” he said.

“If you look at the price, electrifying all 40 million vehicles in Germany or 200 million plus in Europe has a non-linear rising cost, so to go from a free plug to a wallbox was about 10,000 euros.

“Then you look at parking garages and big charging stations. It’s a non-linear cost because you have to build transformer stations and power lines.”

That will be very different with a widespread hydrogen rollout, BMW insisted, because it can utilise existing infrastructure.

“A hydrogen fuel infrastructure growth is a linear curve. A gas station, well a lot of things are already settled, with an owner, an operator and the space.

“Combine all the road users [like trucks] with the passenger cars, and it looks even more favourable for hydrogen.

“A lot of trucks will be hydrogen and they need infrastructure, and they use much more fuel a day than passenger vehicles, so passenger vehicles will follow the trucks.”

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