The BMW CleanEnergy project has set a focus on hydrogen-based propulsion systems using its well-proven internal combustion engine (ICE) and a liquid hydrogen storage system.
With the recent launch of the Hydrogen 7, the world’s first small series hydrogen-powered premium sedan, BMW has entered into a new phase of pre-commercialization of hydrogen vehicles. Based on the experience acquired during the serial development and production process of the Hydrogen 7, BMW has revealed the main challenges for mass production of cryogenic hydrogen vehicle storage. Targets and requirements for a future technological and commercial success of hydrogen vehicle storage have been clarified and confirmed. Due to its promising potential to overcome the issue of thermal performance of liquid hydrogen storage in smaller vehicles while retaining a high system energy density, cryo-compressed hydrogen storage (CcH2) has been added as new option to the automotive hydrogen storage portfolio and is currently developed and tested by the BMW Group. The presentation will summarize BMW’s progress and remaining technical and commercial challenges with liquid hydrogen storage as used in the recently launched Hydrogen 7. It will draw conclusions for vehicle compliance of the different available automotive hydrogen storage types and clarify vehicle constraints for hydrogen onboard storage. BMW’s new cryo-compressed hydrogen vehicle storage approach will be outlined and its potential and challenges be derived. The inter-dependency of different physical hydrogen storage types and their implication on a future hydrogen infrastructure will be outlined.