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by Carmel Stewart (18 Jun 07)
True, along with other manufacturers, it has developed ever more efficient, cleaner, low-emission engines, but the use of battery power or 57 varieties of vegetable oil to power vehicles of the future has never been part of its environmentally-aware automotive programme. For BMW, this was never a race – it was a challenge. For the past 25 years its team of highly qualified engineers at the FIZ Research & Development centre in Germany has been working away on its solution to the problem of pollution, a problem which was not even recognised as such by anyone else when the project began. Its solution is radical to use hydrogen power to run a 12-cylinder, vee-formation, four-stroke, internal-combustion engine in a standard issue production vehicle, albeit a "hybrid" of sorts. This is not fuel cell technology. That requires the use of hydrogen in its gaseous form. The BMW system converts liquid hydrogen into a fuel source and only requires the retention of a petrol tank because of the lack of refuelling facilities in the UK. Uniquely, a 7-Series powered solely by liquid hydrogen can be found on the highways of California, where Arnie is a major proponent of eco-friendly transport.
This month sees the global launch of 100 BMW 7-Series hydrogen-powered vehicles, with up to eight examples destined for the UK. And note, these are not experimental vehicles but production-line produced, road-ready, fully specified, up-and-running models that have already been loaned out to the great and the good. Supermarket bosses, Ministry officials and even a Royal or two have put the new technology to the test, as have a handful of HM motoring media.
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