On the Road in a Hydrogen Powered BMW 7 Series
Last week, during the SAE World Congress in Detroit, I had the chance to drive a BMW 7 series — nothing remarkable except it was powered by hydrogen. Actually it was a dual system that allowed me to switch back and forth between hydrogen fuel and gasoline.
The most amazing thing about that futuristic vehicle is that there was nothing amazing about it at all. I expect the biggest challenge would be finding a fueling station for hydrogen. There aren’t many in this country.
It was completely seamless. Aside from the rather large bold lettering across the side of the car announcing to the world that it is a hydrogen vehicle, you would never have any idea what its power source might be. It was impressive because it was so well done.
Popular Mechanics Video Ride in the 7 Series Hydrogen/Gas car
That hydrogen car uses a BMW piston engine that also runs on gasoline.
Now there might be a huge problem in changing the world around to offer hydrogen on every street corner, but the automobile companies would continue to use the same manufacturing plants to build engines.
It was a great opportunity to get a quick glimpse of tomorrow.
We’re not all going to be driving hydrogen vehicles in the next 20 years. But it just might be used first with vehicles that have to come home at night to a central refueling station — say, taxicabs or local delivery vans. Fueling would then disappear as an issue.
We’ll see some hydrogen vehicles in the future, and no one knows for sure when or how many. Hydrogen will have to compete with other fuels.
Sure, we’ll see lots of gasoline vehicles. Since we have the infrastructure, gasoline has a big head start.
But, of course, we’ll add diesel, which might make a lot of sense if the government gets out of the way.
For the zero-emissions folks, we’ll have electric cars, although someone is going to ask where the electricity comes from.
And let’s not forget to add biofuels, those fuels that will take food away from hungry folks in the Third World.
I’m becoming a fan of shale oil, a product that, I read 25 years ago, wouldn’t be viable until oil was as expensive as perhaps $60 a barrel. We have lots of shale oil reserves in the United States, and now it looks like we can afford to extract them.
There will be no single winning fuel in the future. It’s going to take all of them to fuel our world.
Keith Crain is publisher and editorial director of Automotive News.
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