BMW’s senior executive has warned that the UK must support a network hydrogen filling stations, or it will lose out in the race to greener vehicles against the Continent and Asia.
Jurgen Guldner is the manager of hydrogen technology for the German auto giant. He said: “If UK government wants decarbonisation, then get a strategy. Decarbonise commercial vehicles and roll it out to passengers.”
BMW is testing a fleet near 100 hydrogen-powered cars, the iX5, around the globe. It plans to release a commercial hydrogen vehicle later this decade.
Proponents of hydrogen say that the vehicle’s exhaust pipe produces no carbon dioxide. The hydrogen cars are also able to be refilled in minutes, as opposed to hours at petrol stations. It is expected that the fuel will also be used to decarbonise lorries, which would be too heavy with an electric battery.
Guldner stated that BMW customers love the speed and convenience a hydrogen-fueled car offers, but admitted the infrastructure is still far behind electric charging stations. BMW reports that the UK now has only 12 hydrogen-fueling stations. This is down from around 20. Guldner stated that stations have been closing in the UK in recent months due to a lack of consumption. We’ll need to see if commercial vehicles can kickstart the market.
He said: “If infrastructure is being built in the UK, then we will be prepared to launch a car in the UK.” If there are no hydrogen fueling stations in the UK we will take the cars to Japan, Korea, and Europe where there is an expanding network of fuelling stations.
BMW produces its pilot cars in a special factory in Munich. The drive train of the cars includes a hydrogen tank that can store up to 6kg. In the fuel cell, hydrogen and oxygen in the air undergo a chemical reaction.
Electricity is then sent to an electric engine, which drives the vehicle. The battery is also charged, and acts as a temporary storage unit until the energy needed to drive the vehicle. The iX5 can travel 313 miles.
BMW claims that building two separate infrastructures, one for battery electric cars and another for hydrogen cars will be faster and cheaper than choosing only one technology. Guldner explained that electric charging points will become more costly over time, as the grid upgrades are needed.
Hydrogen has a drawback in that it takes a lot of energy to produce, preferably renewable. BMW acknowledges the issue of energy loss but says that it doesn’t matter because hydrogen can be produced in more sunny regions, such as the Middle East.
David Cebon is a professor of mechanical engineering and a Cambridge University. He said that the inefficiency of hydrogen meant that it would cost three times as much to drive a hydrogen vehicle per kilometer than a battery-electric car.
He said that the problem with hydrogen was its low efficiency. “When you compress and store renewable electricity, then use it to drive a fuel cell vehicle, only 23 percent of the energy gets to the wheels.” About 69 percent of energy is transferred to the wheels in a battery-electric vehicle.
He said: “It’s clear that the ‘Betamax Moment’ of hydrogen vehicles is over and battery electric vehicles are going to dominate personal mobility in the future.”
BMW has not changed its mind. Oliver Zipse was the chief executive of BMW last week and he insisted that hydrogen is “the missing puzzle piece when it comes emission-free mobility”.
He said that “one technology alone will not suffice to achieve climate-neutral transportation worldwide.”
Tata, the Indian owner of Jaguar Land Rover, has released a series of recruitment ads that have boosted hopes that Jaguar Land Rover would choose Somerset as the site for a multi-billion pound “gigafactory”.
In May, an announcement was expected confirming the JLR agreement, which included hundreds of millions of pounds in UK state assistance. However, the lack of such a statement has led to fears that Tata may build instead in Spain.
The group has now started recruiting UK staff to work for a company called Agratas, which, according to the job advertisements, will manufacture batteries for JLR vehicles.
According to LinkedIn ads, Tata is looking for HR advisers to help with the expansion of Agratas at its Coventry technology centre. Agratas is building two plants, a 20GWh plant in India and a facility of 40GWh in Europe.
According to a Whitehall source, talks are underway between Tata and government about incentives to choose Britain. JLR refused to comment, and Tata was not able to be contacted for comment.