BMW Jumps Into Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles

After teasing — and then withdrawing — a concept fuel cell electric vehicle for the 2015 North American International Auto Show in Detroit earlier this year, BMW really will have fuel cell vehicles in production by 2020.

The news comes from AutoExpress, which got wind of the 2020 FCEV (fuel cell electric vehicle) launch from "sources at BMW." Based on the timing and an R&D alliance with Toyota, AutoExpress reports that the production cycle favors the next iteration of the BMW i3 electric vehicle line.

BMW introduced a "production-ready" hydrogen car on a demo-testing basis back in 2005, but that vehicle burned hydrogen in a combustion engine. The FCEV is a completely different approach (fuel cells don’t burn fuel, they convert it to electricity). Hydrogen can be produced from sustainable sources using renewable energy, and BMW has begun to explore the renewable biogas angle.

BMW’s biogas initiative brings up an interesting point about sustainably sourced hydrogen, which is that FCEVs are far from the only market for biogas. With competing demands, it’s not a given that enough sustainable hydrogen will be around to supply a growing FCEV market — assuming that the FCEV market will grow.

In 2014, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) produced a hydrogen market study called "Renewable Hydrogen Potential from Biogas in the United States," which addresses exactly that point.

The report details the availability of methane from wastewater treatment plants, manure, and industrial/commercial sources as well as landfills, in the context of demand from the FCEV market as well as other users. NREL comes up with a total methane potential in raw biogas estimated at at approximately 16 million tonnes, though actual net availability is about 6.2 million tonnes.

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