Spiegel comes down hard on BMW Hydrogen 7
The influential German magazine Spiegel isn't impressed with the energy balance presented by the luxurious BMW Hydrogen 7. Claiming the vehicle will "put more strain on the environment than a heavy diesel truck," the magazine pointed out the car requires 50 liters of hydrogen to drive the same distance as 13.9 liters, or 3.7 gallons, of gasoline. Then the magazine went into the energy and money required to produce the currently scarce supplies of hydrogen. BMW is one of the few companies experimenting with hydrogen in an internal combustion engine. Ford has a small program with a V10 engine in an airport transport bus, but BMW is tempting premium consumers with the technology. Early buyers are celebrities but BMW won't divulge any names.
[Source: Christian Wust/Spiegel]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tim 1:27PM (11/18/2006)
Spiegel Magazine has it right. Hydrogen is a stall and a diversion. It makes no scientific or economic sense. We have cheap, clean home grown electric available right now. We can make our own electricity and our own bio-diesel at home cheap and easy. That scares them. We can electrolyze our own Hydrogen, but we can’t economically compress, store and pump it into our auto tanks at home. That’s why they focus on it. Big auto and Big oil are working together with big gov't to drain every drop of oil from the earth and every possible dollar from us. They are drunk on the power and they won’t give it back.
http://internalcombustionbook.com
The LOVE of money is the root…
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George Krpan 3:31PM (11/18/2006)
In the prior post entitled, "Honda manager Stephen Ellis frustrated with anti-hydrogen "EV zealots"" someone commented that the Tesla cost $100,000 implying that electric cars are expensive. I just saw an advertisement in Scientific American magazine by Chevron that puts the price of a hydrogen car at $1,000,000.
Car makers and oil companies are going to work hard to give us what's best for them not what's best for us. But it's not going to work and they are powerless to do anything about it. They can do nothing to prevent the development of the battery powered car and they can't do anything about our access to electricity. Battery operated cars with fast recharge times will come and will be much more competively priced and cheaper and easier to fuel than a hydrogen cars.
How in the heck are they going to sell hydrogen cars? They probably view battery powered cars as an infringement on their entitlement to the orderly collection of money.
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John 1:21AM (11/19/2006)
What, you guys think power companies are non profit charities? If there is a solution that will catch on with the masses, somebody will be there to collect the dollars sure to fall from the sky. It won't be the average guy making the big coin. There are people who are filthy rich and those who are dirt poor. The haves and have nots. Human beings are greedy buggers. We've always been that way and we'll always be that way. If something becomes popular, somebody will stand to profit....whether it be hydrogen, electricity or anything else. Fred Flintsone is the only guy who ever broke free of the energy conglomerates.
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Tim 8:57AM (11/20/2006)
John- They certainly are not charities. However, you need to understand their business model. When President Bush said that “America is addicted to oil…” He wasn’t speaking metaphorically. His oil buddies are the drug manufacturers and dealers. The money is in the crack, not the crack pipe. When I “sold” pressure washers to industry, we would give away the machines when the customer purchased their cleaning chemicals to run through the machines from us. I currently work for a large merchant credit card processor, and yes, we’ll give free terminals to merchants who let us process their cards. Have a good location, and the vending company will place a machine there for FREE, they will keep it stocked for free and even share their profits with you. If you understand the car business, you know that the profit in manufacturing and selling cars is insignificant compared the profits from consumables i.e.: parts, service and most importantly lubricants, coolants and fuel. Why do you think the funds that own 59% of GM also own many times that amount in the oil companies. http://www.ev1.org/gmoil.htm. It’s good business to keep you customers addicted. Just ask the pharmaceutical manufacturers and the fast food industry. Without legislation, the auto manufacturers will never produce electric cars that use no oil, coolant, grease, have fewer parts to break and will allow you to make your own fuel from the sun, wind etc. The legislature will never pass these laws because of tax and lobbing revenue from consumables.
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Scott 9:55AM (11/20/2006)
Why shouldn't we use up all the oil before switching to other technologies? Oil flows freely from the ground, the infrastructure is all in place to refine it and sell it for fuel, it's cheap, and we are getting better and better about making ICE's cleaner every year. I don't think hydrogen will be the successor, I don't have all the knowledge on the subject but since it takes so much input to get hydrogen it just doesn't compare to our current use of oil. Electric needs some major developments - most obvious are driving range and "refueling". Until we can pull into an electric "gas" station and recharge in ~5-10min, it's simply impractical for most consumers. Yes, if you just commute to work then you can charge your car overnight. But what about say a vacation trip or any longer drive? Most people aren't going to be willing to drive 200miles then stay somewhere overnight as their car charges.
To put it simply, I think it makes the most sense to use up our freely available resources first and let necessity fuel our shift to other means. I have a strong feeling that's how things are going to work anyways simply for cost reasons.
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Mr Wizard 1:28PM (11/20/2006)
historical precedence for not completely exhausting a resource: Fertile Cresent, now a desert
historical precedence for not letting corperations do as they may: FDA, there was literally feces in food before the goobernment made laws on sanitation
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Doug Marsh 4:35PM (12/19/2006)
Does anyone know how much electricity it takes to generate hydrogen equivqlent to 1 gal of gasoline?
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CM 3:01AM (12/20/2006)
BMW chose a sedan with poor fuel economy and loaded it with a 30 gallon liquid H2 tank and a 19.7 petrol tank - hardly any trunk space left. The performance is average, 0-60 in 9.5 sec. The 12 cylinder engine is noisy when running on H2 as hydrogen is prone to pre-detonation and knock. Liquid H2 is expensive, and is steadily lost to boil-off - sitting idle, the entire tank will boil away in just 2 weeks. Steel absorbs hydrogen and turns brittle, so sudden shattering of engine parts is a distinct possibility after a few months. In short, there is nothing to appeal to the snobs that will be driving them.
I suspect that BMW wants their "hydrogen 7" to fail. Then they can go back to peddling the high powered gas guzzlers they've become famous for, and forget about any alternatives.
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