TheByte

Just_me

BMW's recent announcement of a production-ready hydrogen-powered 7-Series came as a surprise to auto enthusiasts and science buffs alike, but columnist Rich Smith of The Motley Fool isn't impressed. Smith calls the introduction of the Hydrogen 7 "a PR stunt." Why? He says a hydrogen combustion engine is a far cry from a hydrogen fuel cell, which generates power to drive an electric motor. He also argues the price tag of such a vehicle would be highly prohibitive, citing the fact that Toyota values its hydrogen fuel cell prototypes at $1 million. The Leftlane Perspective: Smith might make some valid arguments, but there's no doubt a hydrogen combustion engine would be considerably less expensive than fuel cell system. What's more, Mr. Smith fails to realize that driving enthusiasts — a big portion of BMW's customer base — seem to prefer the experience of a combustion engine to that of an electric motor.

The Artist

LOL.. he might be right.. i dont know so much about hydrogen that i can say if its any good..

Giannis

true...
i want to drive some other kind of engines as well, like that H2, some kind of an electric motor with a CVT geabox, and at last a toyota prius. Then i will be able to tell you which is my favourite..

siko

I'm not surprised since there are many critics of hydrogen as a viable solution to replace fossil fuels.

I've done a little research on this subject for an environmental engineering class that I took a while back and I have to agree with some of the critics.

That said, the technology has tremendous potential and I honestly believe in this technology.

The main problem with hydrogen today is that since hydrogen does not exist by itself in nature, thus we need to extract it… and that requires energy, which today is mostly provided by fossil fuels!

But techniques exists to get hydrogen from non fossil fuels, like water electrolysis, thermochemistry, photochemistry, biomass gasification, etc. The problem is that today those techniques cost a lot of money and are not yet very efficient.

NarutoRamen

Well to add to what you said, the techniques you mensioned also use machinery, computers, whatever which is in fact given power by fossil fuels...so we're screwed either way until some genius can figure out a ratio of 1:3 or more.

siko

Yes and no... you always need power to do anything, including daily routine things. Where that general power comes from varies alot.

For instance, here in Quebec, we are fortunate to have hydroelectricity, which is one of the most environmentally friendly sources of energy. Nuclear is somewhat environmentally friendly… then you have coal which sucks, etc, etc.

Going back to hydrogen… you have to see hydrogen as storage of energy, and not a source of energy. So you have to use energy and store it as hydrogen. Now ideally, we would store that energy using renewable sources to begin with, like solar or wind power for instance.

The beauty of hydrogen is that you can transport it and use it later in big things (i.e. to power towns or whatever; note that we are very far from that) or that you can put it into smaller things like cars.

Now think about it… solar or wind power cannot be efficiently used in a car since cars are too small. But if we could efficiently use solar or wind power to store hydrogen, and then putting that hydrogen into cars, then we would have succeeded. Remember that hydrogen is only a mean to an end.

Personally, I believe that BMW did its part, in the sense that you cannot expect them to solve the whole equation! Car manufacturers are responsible of providing vehicles that can run on hydrogen! It’s up to energy & environmental companies to solve the storage problem!

Osnabrueck

Good points Siko. The bottom line is that Hydrogen fuel can't and won't be "green" anytime soon unless we use nuclear power to drive extraction processes. From what I understand, with todays technology, you'd be paying roughly $10.00 a gallon to buy green hydrogen fuel.

However, I don't thumb my nose at the Hydrogen 7. The Hydrogen combustion engine represents a solution that comsumers want, and specifically, an experience that BMW's clientele would prefer over any other process. It's very BMW of them to develop this engine, and good for a strong premium brand like them to take the lead.

Hydrogen fuel cell and electric is a future we might need, but Hydrogen combustion is the future car enthusiasts definitely want.

RikfromBelgium

I saw something on the news a couple of days ago: a powerplant that produces energy by disposing of garbage. They burn the garbage, and the heat is used to make energy. Combine that with the production of Hydrogen, should be a pretty nice step forward, since we do produce quite a lot of garbage.