BMW Hydrogen 7 - production-ready, hydrogen-gasoline V12 Saloon

Right from the start, therefore, this alternative energy technology brand-new in a series production car is absolutely equal to the gasoline engine with its history of more than 100 years. So the conclusion is clear: A hydrogen car is also able to offer power, performance, driving dynamics, motoring refinement and, as a result, sheer driving pleasure of the supreme standard expected of a genuine BMW.

Apart from the driving experience, the twelve-cylinder power unit carried over from the BMW 760i as the basis for the engine in BMW Hydrogen 7 offers further benefits highly relevant to the customer. Indeed, the engine comes with all the qualities gained by BMW in decades of experience in the production of particularly powerful and efficient power plants, which also means the supreme reliability so typical of a BMW.

Compared with a fuel cell hardly able to offer the same kind of power, the combustion engine is far lighter right from the start. A further point is that use of a combustion engine also means lower cost of production, with BMW Hydrogen 7 not only having gone through the BMW Group’s entire process of series development, but also being fully integrated in the conventional production process even as a hydrogen car: The new hydrogen model is built at BMW’s Dingolfing Plant parallel to the other models in the BMW 7, 6 and 5 Series, with the drive unit in BMW Hydrogen 7 coming like all BMW twelve-cylinders from the Company’s engine production plant in Munich.

Direct gasoline injection and hydrogen intake manifold supply

The hydrogen combustion engine is based on the gasoline power unit featured in the BMW 760i, offering the most advanced and sophisticated highlights in technology such as fully variable VALVETRONIC valve management and variable double-VANOS camshaft control. Further confirmation of the engineering skills of BMW’s engine development specialists is borne out by the modifications required for dual-mode drive, with fuel being supplied in the gasoline mode through direct injection and with a hydrogen supply pipe integrated in the engine’s intake system.

The key technology is the injection valves required to provide the appropriate fuel/air mixture, blowing exactly the right amount of hydrogen gas into the intake air within fractions of a second.

Burning up to ten times faster than conventional fuel, hydrogen offers a higher level of efficiency. To make use of this potential in full, the V12 power unit in BMW Hydrogen 7 requires particularly flexible engine management ensured ideally by VALVETRONIC and double-VANOS, where both the gas cycle and injection rhythm can be perfectly tailored to the specific features and characteristics of the hydrogen/air mixture.

Minimisation of nitric oxides

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