Even the most efficient turbodiesel engines in the world cannot match up to the efficiency of BMW’s new hydrogen internal combustion engine. BMW has partnered up in this H2BVplus program with researchers from Graz University of Technology, HyCentA and HOERBIGER of Vienna, Austria to produce an engine with improve geometry and progressive high-pressure direct injection of hydrogen.
The efficiency of BMW’s new hydrogen engine is rated at 42-percent, which is one-percent higher than the most efficient turbodiesel engines and roughly 50-percent higher than standard gasoline-powered internal combustion engines. The new BMW hydrogen engine combines the strengths of spark-ignition, diesel design and the low ignition temperatures of hydrogen.
The direct injection method pushes hydrogen into the cylinders at around 4,500 psi to produce around 100 kw of output. These same researchers have been working under the European Union Hydrogen Internal Combustion Engine (HyIce) project with the goal of competing with turbodiesel engines for efficiency ratings.
One has to wonder if this new H2 engine will anytime soon be ported over to the BMW Hydrogen 7 luxury car that the manufacturer has been loaning out to celebrities and other notables for the past year or so? Or perhaps BMW has some other interesting plans for the new engine? There’s no word yet, so we’ll have to keep our eye on this one to see how it unfolds.
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