Car features Hydrogen hybrid cars
BMW has a hydrogen model in production
Hydrogen – which produces only water when burned – is a potential future fuel, but not yet a practical choice.
It is made by a process called electrolysis, which requires energy from power stations, so for now it’s no more carbon-neutral than producing fuel from oil.
In the future, however, scientists envisage green production of hydrogen, with the power for the process supplied by renewable means.
BMW has led the world in hydrogen technology, and has even put a model fuelled by hydrogen into production.
The Hydrogen 7 is based on the existing 7 Series, but its conventional petrol engine has been converted to use hydrogen as well as petrol.
The result, when running on hydrogen, is exhaust emissions of only water. Performance suffers a bit compared with the standard car, and the tank range isn’t great, but the company still sees the Hydrogen 7 as a viable step towards zero-emission vehicles.
Hydrogen hybrid concept
Mazda has gone one stage further and developed a hydrogen hybrid concept. This uses a rotary engine that, as in the BMW, will run on hydrogen.
But it also has an electric motor, which is powered by lithium-ion batteries and boosts the power of the hydrogen engine by 40%. As with today’s hybrids, running the electric motor in reverse turns it into a generator, recharging the batteries.
The Mazda system is a parallel one, like the Honda Civic Hybrid’s, which means that running under electric power alone is not possible: the electric motor assists the constantly running engine, rather than substituting for it.
But Mazda still sees this as a ‘green’ way of overcoming the lower power outputs associated with hydrogen, as well as ensuring that no harmful emissions come from the exhaust.
