Hydrogen-Powered BMW 7 Series

What are the most common elements in the universe? Of course, it’s hydrogen and stupidity! Seriously, we’re being too dependent on fossil fuels, and now that I’ve started driving again, I can feel the pressure of having to deal with rising gas prices.

Sure, electric and hybrid cars can help you save up on fuel, but sometimes the performance is just not there. And having to plug in to recharge your car can be quite a drag–and it adds to the electric bill, too! I think it’s a better alternative is to use a more readily-available resource, instead. BMW has one such cool–literally cool!–car in the hydrogen powered BMW 7-series.

The company’s engineers heard that hydrogen will be the fuel of the future, so they took a 7-series sedan and converted it … The Hydrogen7 uses a completely different approach than a fuel-cell vehicle. BMW Vice President Dr. Timm Kehler told us that electric motors could [not? -ed] provide the performance that BMW demands, so the company worked out how to use hydrogen in an internal-combustion engine. The Hydrogen7 has hydrogen and gas tanks, and can switch between them, just in case you can’t find any hydrogen refueling stations.

What’s great, in my opinion, is that the hydrogen fuel works with the internal-combustion engine. It’s currently using a V6, but an inline 4-cylinder version is being developed. So this means this technology can potentially be adopted for use in other automobiles as well.

I just hope the development efforts for alternative fuel sources comes up with something marketable and widely-available in the near future. It’s even better if they can use something that’s as abundant in the universe, but not as difficult to acquire and store: stupidity!