BMW i Hydrogen Next concept announced hydrogen crossover

The photo is taken from the site: https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/car-news/first-official-pictures/bmw/i-hydrogen-next/

Electric cars and hybrids are gradually occupying an increasing market share and are increasingly found in the news stream. But there are other ways to reduce harmful emissions from vehicles. For example, BMW has not forgotten the theme of hydrogen cell engines. In 2022, the Bavarians intend to release a small series of hydrogen crossovers based on the current generation of BMW X5. And the forerunner of such a model is the BMW i Hydrogen Next concept, shown several days ago at the Frankfurt auto show.

The developers of the car do not provide technical parameters. But they remind you of the main advantages of hydrogen cars over electric cars: refueling time of less than four minutes, solid mileage - almost the same in winter and in summer. The latter can be estimated by the experimental model of 5 Series GT hydrogen fuel cell. For these cars, more than 500 km of travel at one fueling is declared. Since 2015, BMW has been testing a small batch of such hatchbacks, which helps in the development of serial models with a similar stuff.

In this area, BMW works in collaboration with Toyota, which already has hydrogen production models (e.g. Mirai). Toyota helped BMW to create an experimental hydrogen 5-GT. Now the engineers of the two companies are working together on the next generation of fuel cells and on the modular scalable architecture of hydrogen cars. In addition, both the BMW Group and Toyota are members of the Hydrogen Council, an organization engaged in the distribution and popularization of hydrogen technologies in the world. Now it includes 60 companies.

The Bavarian auto giant claims that the X-fifth hydrogen will prove to be a pioneer who will set the stage for truly massive hydrogen cars of the brand. They, according to the managers of the company, will appear on the market no earlier than in 2025. However, getting better at BMW, this period can be adjusted based on “market requirements and changing conditions”.

The photo is taken from the site: https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/car-news/first-official-pictures/bmw/i-hydrogen-next/

Why is hydrogen?

BMW representatives say that in future various alternative types of drive system will exist alongside one another. That means that the company doesn’t want to waste billions of costs on one form of propulsion and then be left behind when the industry moves on.

As it has been mentioned before, BMW has set a tentative 2022 release date for their BMW i Hydrogen Next. It’s likely the brand is waiting for hydrogen infrastructure to expand before releasing the vehicle. Unlike electric cars, hydrogen cars cannot be topped up from the plug socket. Instead, they require a high-tech filling station infrastructure. Nevertheless, such stations are not developed enough yet.

Though, the advantages of hydrogen over a pure electric vehicle are clear. A range of hundreds of miles is possible, and rather than waiting for a lengthy charge refueling it takes just minutes.

The benefits of zero localized emissions are obvious, with hydrogen cars emitting pure water from their exhausts. Moreover, such cars are run by an electric motor and battery combo, but with the fuel cell stack generating its own electricity. That is why the battery itself can be much smaller than it would on a similar full EV. This also means fewer rare earth metals used in the construction process.