On November 24th 2006, BMW has presented in Berlin, for the first time, HYDROGEN 7, also to show how these cars can be supplied of hydrogen (H2) with this kind of engine.

The BMW project for the Series 7 H2 is rather complex and it has started already in 1978, starting from the idea that this car must offer to the client the same performances of a gasoline car.

Finally, this car has started to be produced in the German plant of Dingolfing and it has been presented to the road.
Then, 100 VIPs as testimonials have started to test it for 6 months, committed to give to their test-cars the maximum visibility possible.

This car is a limousine of the 7 series with a fuel cells engine, 12 cylinders, 260 Cv and an acceleration (0-100 Km/h) in 9.5 sec. His top speed has been electronically limited to 230 Km/h.

This car works with 2 fuels, liquid H2 and gasoline to avoid the difficulties of finding H2 along the roads today.
In this way, the car can easily and quickly turned from H2 to gasoline and conversely, to reach a total autonomy of 700 Km, 500 with gasoline and 200 with H2.

The sales have started in April in North America, Europe and Japan, but the price is really very high; about
3500 Euro/month in leasing (I haven't still found the total price), like the same gasoline version, the 760iL.
The same H2 will be expensive, costing about 1.65 English Pounds/litre.
BMW relies on selling about 100 H2 cars within the end of 2007, not little, for a car like this.

The problem is that the H2 service stations are still to be built, in the whole Europe.
The Linde company, one of the main H2 producers, that has with BMW a supplying contract, has esteemed that at least 3 billions Euro of investments will be necessary to create an adequate refueling network.
In the meantime, BMW will provide directly the liquid H2 to the prototypes given in use to the VIPs.

Another problem is that its great cryogenic tank (to keep the liquid H2 always at -250C or less!) occupies half of the space dedicate to the boot but, being this a car for a selected public, BMW has announced that there's no reason to worry, because there's enough space for charging two bags for golf clubs.
Just the minimum to survive...

The last negative fact about this car is that, despite it produces only water as a waste from its engine, its impact is still not totally clean as it could be, because the H2 provided to it is still produced from natural gas, that is giving a great contribution to the greenhouse effect.
It's clear that the H2-car for everybody, with sufficient assistance conditions, is still far to come.

Learn more about this author, Aldo Bonincontro.
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