BMW will begin testing a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle co-developed with Toyota soon, according to a report from AutoCar, but executives are still betting battery technology will win out. That means the proposed hydrogen production car from BMW may never see the light of day.

No stranger to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, BMW has developed several interesting innovations meant to solve the problems of price and storage. By teaming up with Toyota, BMW is hopefuly it can actually make an affordable and viable production vehicle that runs on hydrogen, probably naming it the i5. But according to BMW marketing chief Ian Robertson, the problem with hydrogen doesn’t like with the cars themselves, but the fueling infrastructure.

“We’ve said we’ll continue to invest in hydrogen and that will result in a small number of production test vehicles being made to prove the technology works,” Robertson to AutoCar. “The real issues lie not around what we can do, though, but whether the infrastructure can be built up to supply hydrogen in the marketplace cost-effectively.”

According to Robertson, advances in lithium-ion, lithium-air, and solid-state batteries could eliminate range and charging anxiety as an issue for plug-in cars. As Tesla has already done, BMW is rolling out a fast-charging network to support plug-in cars, the Car of the Year i3 and Top Gear Car of the year i8. But developing a viable hydrogen infrastructure is much more expensive and difficult, as hydrogen is an absolute bitch to store and transport effectively.

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Tags: BMW, BMW i3, bmw i5, bmw i8, fast charging network, hydrogen, hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, Toyota

About the Author

Christopher DeMorro A writer and gearhead who loves all things automotive, from hybrids to HEMIs, Chris can be found wrenching or writing- or esle, he’s running, because he’s one of those crazy people who gets enjoyment from running insane distances.

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