BMW holds back as rivals steal marque on fuel cell vehicles

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BMW recently gave journalists test drives in a prototype version of the 5 Series GT with hydrogen fuel cell power, along with drives in its secretive Black Beauty fuel cell sports car, based on the i8.

But when it comes to production cars, BMW plans to wait until the next generation of fuel-cell development it is conducting with its research partner Toyota. So, the car maker is in for a long wait.

2016/2017 sees no production

"There will be nothing whatsoever from the Toyota and BMW partnership in production next year or 2017," BMW's vice-president of drivetrain research, Matthias Klietz, conceded at the recent Detroit motor show. He said 2019 "is probably the best bet for that, and that's the normal development cycle. But it will be somewhere between 2020 and 2025 from the hydrogen fuel-cell development."

While it also means that those talking up a Supra-Z4 connection are a bit premature in their predictions, the matter of most concern is that it won't even deliver production-ready fuel-cell parts until 2020, much less a fully developed car to be taken to showrooms across the world.

"Our target is to have hydrogen fuel-cell components ready by 2020," Klietz said. "It does not mean that we would not be able to show something before then, like a concept car or a prototype.

"The hydrogen fuel-cell stack in the 5-Series GT prototype is the same as the one in the (Toyota) Mirai. With the 5-Series GT prototype, we can produce 100kW of power out of the stack with 400 parts at 0.25kW each.

"The Black Beauty stack was a totally different story. That one was not industrialised. It was pure research and everything in it was a prototype part."

Catching up to Toyota

So, what will BMW be doing in the long years before its production fuel-cell car comes to life? Catching up to its partner, Toyota, it seems.

"Toyota are more advanced in that technology than we at BMW are. We started to develop targets," Klietz conceded. "In phase one, our main task was to speed up in the development from our end so that we were able to continue in the same level of development competence as Toyota," he added.

"We are now in phase two and we want to now develop with the same level of competence.

"Now, we target a different stack for 2020. Now, we share a stack (from Mirai), but by 2020, it will be the one that is in development right now," Klietz said.

"It's all now about cost reduction in the fuel-cell system in the stack, its life and the cell and all the technology in terms of performance efficiency and integration of the system," he added.

Differing intentions

But don't expect a Toyota and BMW fuel-stack vehicle to (eventually) drive the same way. BMW is out for more power, while Toyota is all about achieving more and more range.

"The more stacks we get in the same space, the more power we get out of them," said Klietz.

"The industrialisation is the target - that includes cost down and decreasing rare earth material use."

It is clear that BMW and Toyota have different ideas about which company is going to need fuel cells the most. Toyota is starting off by installing the technology in the smallest of its small cars, while BMW intends to go big, probably going into production first with a 5-Series in two generations' time or one of its X models.

"A fuel-cell vehicle is going to be used for long driving, and it's an electric vehicle. It's an electric vehicle and a different power source," Klietz said.

"That's why we have categorised it as a large vehicle - because it will work best if it's doing more than 18,000km a year," he added.

Prototype specs

The two (that have been publicly admitted to) 5-Series GT fuel-cell prototypes deliver 150kW of power, a 0-100km/h sprint of 8.4 seconds and a 180km/h top speed. One of them has a 700-bar hydrogen gas tank inserted down its length, while the other is a newer system with a cryogenic tank that holds liquid hydrogen.

The biggest difference between them is that the older tank holds 4.5kg of hydrogen, while the new-school cold tank, with an internal pressure of just 350 bar, can hold 7.1kg. Effectively, it almost doubles the 450km range of the 'standard"' one, pushing out to 700km.

Other than that, both cars have identical electric motors driving the rear wheels and identical two-speed transmissions. Apart from adding spring stiffness to cope with the extra weight that needs carrying, the chassis, suspension, braking and steering systems are carried over from the standard 5-Series GT.

Technical development partnership

But when production eventually begins, they won't share much architecture with any other production BMWs. Or Toyotas, for that matter.

"Having a technical development partnership does not mean that we necessarily share a complete architecture, but it's about the knowledge of the components," says Klietz.

"The operation does not necessarily mean that we share it in both cars and both brands."

Having a technical development partnership does not mean that we necessarily share a complete architecture, but it's about knowledge of components.

Source: Business Day