BMW and Toyota announced a partnership this week that will see the two car manufacturers co-develop hydrogen fuel cell powered cars which will hit the road as early as 2025.
This is not the first collaboration between the two car makers – they have previously partnered in 2013 to work on a successful sports car design. More specifically on the Toyota Supra and the BMW Z4. This time around the focus of the deal moves them towards sustainability.
Toyota has had a longer presence in the fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) market having recently shown off its 2022 Mirai, a 400-mile range passenger car powered by hydrogen.
With the Mirai, which originally began production in 2014, Toyota was one of the first companies to commercialize a FCEV. The partnership with BMW will see Toyota consolidate and build upon what it sees as a leading market position. In direct contrast Tesla boss Elon Musk has legendarily described hydrogen powered cars as “fool cells,” saying it’s the stupidest idea he has ever encountered – but he would, wouldn’t he.
BMW is already working on its own fuel cell EV and is scheduled to start producing the iX5 Hydrogen before the year is up. By working together they will hope to be able to keep their costs down in hydrogen, and yet retain a clear advantage over other car makers looking to get into hydrogen.
BMW’s chief of sales, Pieter Nota, believes that fuel cell technology will be especially relevant to the SUV market. The iX5 Hydrogen is based on the X5 SUV and will carry two hydrogen tanks with a capacity of around 6 kgs each. These actions highlight the German automaker’s push into greener cars amid increasingly strict environmental regulations in Europe.
Previous reports released by Rethink Energy revealed that fuel cells will achieve big wins in the heavy-duty transport vehicles sector rather than with passenger cars. A greater proportion of light commercial vehicles (LCV) will move to hydrogen than passenger cars, and total hydrogen vehicles are forecast to be 54 million by 2050 – with Citroen, Peugeot and Vauxhall all set to release fuel cell van models as early as this year. But it will still be substantially below battery vehicles in the passenger market.
The plummeting costs of lithium-ion batteries alongside mounting pressure from worldwide legislations that want to see internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles being phased out, make it harder and harder for hydrogen to crack its way into the car industry. Moreover, fuel cell technology is still a few years from being deployed efficiently at scale.
But will a commitment from two of the largest car makers in the world make a difference to that outcome? Well we have been here before when Toyota single-handedly felt that the car market was going hydrogen – and dragging BMW with it, which makes just 2 million cars a year, is unlikely to lead to any sudden breakthroughs in this market and many more companies will have to throw in their lot with hydrogen before the scenario shifts in its favor.
If Toyota and BMW pave the way for the commercialization of hydrogen passenger cars including sponsoring more hydrogen stations – then other manufacturers may try and stake a claim in the market and in the process accelerate it. Our view is that right now it is tough enough to keep two supply chains going – one for ICE vehicles and another for battery plug ins and this initiative is likely to be on the back burner, starved of funding to scale, for at least five years.
Commercial customers may be thrilled at the prospect of a refueling time comparable to gasoline cars, rather than what is currently a 30 minute long wait for an EV battery to recharge.
Our own prediction for the number of fuel cell EVs for 2050 is 54 million (mostly larger trucks and LCVs) while the current expected number of battery-powered vehicles is 1.31 billion supported by about 460 million individual charging posts, out of which more than half will be private.
Hydrogen has a specific advantage in its energy output to weigh ratio (Wh/kg) over batteries at the very largest scale – this may eventually make a difference amount larger SUVs, post 2040.
“Infrastructure is not the same everywhere,” claims Nota. BMW’s growing concerns about how easy it will be to facilitate enough charging points for battery powered EVs is the hurdle it needs to be focused on right now. The other is the lack of availability of necessary raw materials for battery supply chains.
BMW Group has said it will aim for 50% of its new sales to be EVs by 2030. The other half of the sales will then come from ICE vehicles and mild hybrids leaving little room for FCEVs. We predict that it will be forced by the marketplace to move faster than that and will always be catching up.
By 2050 hydrogen might be in a position to dent in the lithium-ion share of the car market, but that will depend upon the falling price of fuel cell manufacture and the cost of hydrogen itself.