BMW Hammers One More Nail in Hydrogen Coffin
Even as BMW clean car honchos tour the globe with the Hydrogen 7, the German automaker could be coming to terms with reality. According to Drive, an Australian magazine
The head of BMW’s clean-energy technology, Jochen Schmalholz, says hydrogen-powered cars are still 15 to 20 years away from being on the road “in significant numbers” and revealed the German maker is also working on an electric vehicle.
With only 5 liquid hydrogen filling stations in the world available to fuel the 100 Hydrogen 7s - “Distribution is the biggest hurdle to the hydrogen car,” Schmalholz says - it could be dawning on BMW that it would be better to develop cars for the electric infrastructure already in place around the world.
He says BMW is also working on an electric car but a decision on production is yet to be made.
“We will only bring this [electric car] if it makes sense,” he says. “At the moment we are not really convinced it will work for BMW. But if it makes commercial sense and it makes sense to our customers, then we will do it.”
Let BMW know.
– Marc G: Plugs and Cars Blog
February 5th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Ha.. I’m glad to see BMW open their eyes… and realize the fundamental infrastructure is already in place for hybrid electric cars. Just add a few large batteries or capacitors to each station for high-peak times… and voila! Rather than starting from scratch by developing a prohibitively expensive hydrogen distribution infrastructure and storage system across the country (and let’s not even talk about the high costs of making hydrogen and the efficiency loss of converting original hydrogen source to energy in motion.)
Hopefully more people will see where the real potential is..
February 6th, 2008 at 11:52 am
I expect a news release any day now announcing a revolutionary Hydrogen car that will also run, (gasp), on gasoline….