Hybrid and Hydrogen half-knowledge
September 27th, 2006Isn’t the media fascinating? BMW’s had a fleet of hydrogen powered 7 series cars whooshing around since well before this generation of 7 was released, and all of a sudden the press – no doubt clued in by a release sent from BMW’s PR department – is rushing to cover the technology, the same way they all parrot Hybrid as some sort of cure all.
I’ve been getting a lot of questions from folks asking what I think of all of this. I’ll spare you the long version, quoting instead from a piece in Car and Driver:
Powering the Hydrogen 7 is a 256-hp 6.0-liter V-12 (the same engine in the 760Li makes 438 hp). The 7-series isn’t light to begin with and saddled with an undisclosed amount of additional weight, the V-12 is said to deliver its driver to 62 mph in a leisurely 9.5 seconds, regardless of which fuel is being used. That’s some four seconds off the pace of a 360-hp 750Li… getting a pound of hydrogen into its liquid form takes roughly six kilowatt hours of electricity. If that electricity comes from a coal-fired plant, it creates as much carbon dioxide as burning half a gallon of gasoline (which contains the same amount of energy as that pound of liquid hydrogen).