BMW: EV’s are Dead, buy Hydrogen Fuel Cells Vehicles

[Rivian_Hugh_III]

Apparently BMW is shifting to Team Hydrogen. See links below.

This aligns with hints I heard from an industry insider late in 2023.

He said he works in Electric Vehicle drivetrains. He said he was in the edge of buying a great condition Tesla for a great price when we began to hear things specifically from Tesla.

He said Tesla is so big that they have the bulk of the world’s best minds working on their drivetrains.

He said it’s really early in the technology and there are some major advances coming in the next 5 years that are mind blowing. It convinced him not to buy the Tesla or any current EV.

I said, “like solid state batteries?” And he didn’t respond or say much more. I didn’t get the feeling that was it.

Hydrogen could be it though. Batteries are so heavy and Tesla’s had trouble bringing advances in batteries to mass production. Charging times still suck and that’s not changing any time soon.

I think hydrogen makes a ton of sense. It solves many of the problems, including charging time and weight. The biggest problem is hydrogen’s explosiveness, but solid state hydrogen would be a game changer (I think I said that right. It’s a “dry” way to store the hydrogen that isn’t easily explosive.)

It’s interesting to me that BMW is ready to go big on hydrogen.

https://hydrogen-central.com/bmw-sa...w-solved-the-problem-of-hydrogen-engines-mes/
https://www.dhakatribune.com/amp/business/338624/bmw-bids-farewell-to-electric-cars-set-to-launch

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[COdogman]

I’ll be dead by the time the hydrogen refilling infrastructure is built out so I will just enjoy my 835hp electric truck until then

 

[CobraJerky]

I’m charging my truck in my garage every night. I don’t stop at the gas station every week like I used to. On road trips charging takes longer sure. I save an immense amount of time not gassing up weekly. No thanks to hydrogen.

 

[DuoRivians]

“Green” hydrogen. More drilling baby

 

[mikehmb]

Like @COdogman said, we’ll all be dead before there’s meaningful hydrogen infrastructure. Love to see it happen, but not holding out hope.

BMW shit the bed hard on EVs. Makes me sad. I love our i3, and considered an i4. Now to get an EV BMW it will require H2 refilling, which can happen in a small handful of places in the US, and none of those places are in my garage.

 

[iansriv]

Didn't Honda try that? I have bad memories from watching the Hindenburg so, not getting behind hydrogen. Also, I believe Toyota is getting behind better battery tech so BMW seems to heading in the wrong direction.

 

[UnsungZero_OldTimeAdMan]

BMW tried hydrogen long before they tried BEVs. Liquid hydrogen has advantages, but is not cheap to make. We’re talking about just turning it from gas to liquid. Not even the entire production process. Have they and Toyota found a way to make it more cheaply? The answer is still “no”.

This is what Dept. of Energy says:

Gaseous hydrogen is liquefied by cooling it to below −253°C (−423°F). Once hydrogen is liquefied it can be stored at the liquefaction plant in large insulated tanks. It takes energy to liquefy hydrogen—using today's technology, liquefaction consumes more than 30% of the energy content of the hydrogen and is expensive.

 

[SoCal Rob]

I think hydrogen makes a lot more sense in places with high population density where refueling stations can serve many vehicles and/or places with relatively short trips being the norm. It would be WAY too easy to strand yourself with a hydrogen-powered vehicle here by not leaving enough range to reach a refueling station. At least with EVs you can refuel as long as you have household power and patience.

 

[NineElectrics]

BMW tried hydrogen long before they tried BEVs. Liquid hydrogen has advantages, but is not cheap to make. We’re talking about just turning it from gas to liquid. Not even the entire production process. Have they and Toyota found a way to make it more cheaply? The answer is still “no”.

It's slowly getting better. Magnetic refrigeration has the potential to significantly reduce hydrogen cooling costs, for example.

 

[emoore]

Hyrdogen makes zero sense for light duty passenger cars. I can see having hydrogen heavy duty trucks and industrial uses. For cars it would be a nightmare. Expecting the average person to be able to fill up with hydrogen would be scary. as well as any crashes. Plus you are going to waste a ton of energy to create hydrogen that you would be getting like 10 MPGe. It's not useful for passenger cars.

 

[zefram47]

Hydrogen is dead on arrival for passenger vehicles. The only place it really has a chance is OTR trucking where the routes are well known and you can more easily layout a filling network. Trucks don't have the volume limitations that passenger vehicles do and weight matters a lot for them. Hydrogen is perfect for that use case. Range for passenger vehicles with a "reasonable" amount of hydrogen onboard sucks and need to be around 5-10k psi. Besides, BMW has already announced that their next gen platforms all support BEV. This is much ado about nothing.

 

[Zoidz]

On the plus side, hydrogen has higher energy density than gas or diesel and burns clean. On the minus side, it's energy intensive to produce hydrogen and current mass production methods use methane as the input source with CO2 as a byproduct, so it's not a green process, especially compared to solar, wind and nuclear.

And of course there is zero distribution infrastructure, and big oil is not going to jump on board anytime soon. Some people don't realize how much oil moves in the US in pipelines. Just try to announce that you are going to start building out a hydrogen pipeline infrastructure. It takes years these days just to get pipeline permitting.

 

[Zorg]

Hydrogen overall energy efficiency from production to motoring a car is a fraction of BEVs. Plus, I highly doubt that people want to have an explosive hydrogen refueling station in their midst.

Not gonna happen. Why BMW is chasing this is weird.

Anyway, not buying a Tesla so that one could buy a fuel cell car is laughable.

 

[theyoungone]

Apparently BMW is shifting to Team Hydrogen. See links below.

This aligns with hints I heard from an industry insider late in 2023.

He said he works in Electric Vehicle drivetrains. He said he was in the edge of buying a great condition Tesla for a great price when we began to hear things specifically from Tesla.

He said Tesla is so big that they have the bulk of the world’s best minds working on their drivetrains.

He said it’s really early in the technology and there are some major advances coming in the next 5 years that are mind blowing. It convinced him not to buy the Tesla or any current EV.

I said, “like solid state batteries?” And he didn’t respond or say much more. I didn’t get the feeling that was it.

Hydrogen could be it though. Batteries are so heavy and Tesla’s had trouble bringing advances in batteries to mass production. Charging times still suck and that’s not changing any time soon.

I think hydrogen makes a ton of sense. It solves many of the problems, including charging time and weight. The biggest problem is hydrogen’s explosiveness, but solid state hydrogen would be a game changer (I think I said that right. It’s a “dry” way to store the hydrogen that isn’t easily explosive.)

It’s interesting to me that BMW is ready to go big on hydrogen.

https://hydrogen-central.com/bmw-sa...w-solved-the-problem-of-hydrogen-engines-mes/
https://www.dhakatribune.com/amp/business/338624/bmw-bids-farewell-to-electric-cars-set-to-launch

Dang @COdogman I didn’t know toyota was so against BEVs that they had to PAY BMW to get in on their hydrogen dreams ??

 

[NY_Rob]

Not to worry.. Toyota's Solid State battery will be out in 2-yrs... I promise ?

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