BMW Sees Hydrogen as the Future – Not Hybrids
Two years ago I shared a ride to the airport with a senior BMW engineer responsible for advanced drivetrains like the new wave of BMW and MINI plugin hybrids (like the forthcoming Countryman). The conversation was purely off the record but I was left with the clear understanding that BMW looked at hybrids and even plugin hybrids as a stepping stone to something much better. Now it would appear BMW is opening up about that idea with this latest interview courtesy of Digitaltrends.com with Merten Jung, BMW’s head of fuel cell development.
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What does this mean for MINI? While Hydrogen may make sense for larger cars, it’s many years away for small, lower cost platforms such as the UKL the MINI is based off of. Instead we expect to see more efficiency diesel and petrol powertrains in the smaller MINIs in the short term with electrification in the larger MINI over the next few years. At some point during the 4th generation MINI life-cycle (which debuts in 2020) we’d expect electrification to play a larger role across both small and larger MINI platforms. Hydrogen is likely more than a decade away from consideration. But clearly BMW (and thus MINI) sees a bright future for the technology.
