BMW believes in both battery-electric and hydrogen vehicles

Most people think that battery electric and hydrogen vehicles are competitors. This means that only one can succeed and the other will ultimately fail. In BMW however, they believe that these two technologies can actually coexist and thrive. In fact, BMW has been working on both battery-electric and hydrogen vehicles.

BMW Sales and Marketing boss Ian Robertson says: “The question is where does advances in battery technology make the fuel cell less attractive. At the moment we know we can turn compressed hydrogen into electricity and you can fuel it within ten minutes, but the capacity of batteries and the recharging capability is moving very, very fast.”

BMW is planning to expand their iPerformance lineup of vehicles while investing new battery technology and possibly introducing a new hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle in the next four years.

“Three of four years ago we thought that Lithium Ion had reached its peak, but that is not the case. Now we have Lithium Air, solid state batteries that are moving at a rapid rate, not just for cars but for any consumer electronic device that doesn’t have a cable attached to it anymore. There is an awful lot of deep research [going] into that field. Only time will tell when it becomes a matter of how quickly does its curve change the crossover point with the logistics and infrastructure of hydrogen.”

Robertson does that longevity-wise, the pure battery-electric vehicles have the advantage. However, he also admits that “we don’t know what the future holds, so we’re hedging our bets. Looking at it rationally, the battery is probably the way to go. But we don’t quite know the answers yet.”

“I think for the next 10 years we will see the combustion engine as the primary driver but at some point, maybe in the 10-20 year horizon we are going to see the combustion engine peak and start to go down. None of us really know the trajectory of that curve, so we want to have the capability of playing in each one of these powertrain fields because when one runs up and one runs down is unclear.”

Source: Drive.com.au