BMW is presently developing an architecture known as New Class that will underpin a new selection of EVs beginning in 2025. Even though the platform just isn’t being developed with internal combustion in thoughts, Autoblog discovered that the German agency hasn’t dominated out creating it compatible with hydrogen.
“We are functioning on currently being on equipped to integrate hydrogen [into the New Class platform]. Not as of 2025, and likely only in the larger sized cars. We haven’t finished [the project] nevertheless but it’s a possibility,” Jürgen Guldner, the hydrogen program’s normal manager, informed me.
Setting up with a blank slate presents BMW the prospect to upcoming-proof the New Class system — it can be considerably less difficult and a complete whole lot to much less expensive to design the architecture with hydrogen in mind from the get-go, even if this choice is never ever made use of, than to modify it to get a hydrogen-powered drivetrain soon after it’s been in production for a few of a long time. Guldner added that his workforce is hunting at a clever packaging resolution.
“The tank process [in the iX5] is rather major, and it truly is positioned right in the center of the automobile. The strategy is to have lesser tanks positioned up coming to each other that just take up the area of an EV’s battery pack. Smaller sized tanks, nonetheless cylindrical, but far more of them, and then we are versatile. The rest of the infrastructure is currently in the vehicle — the motor, for case in point. We have not seriously resolved yet, but the possibility is there,” Guldner added.
Irrespective of no matter whether a hydrogen-electric, New Course-centered product reaches creation, Guldner has substantial hopes for the engineering.
“It is really the most enjoyable job that I’ve worked on in my 25 years at BMW, and I have performed some cool things,” he states with a smile.