BMW's Hydrogen V12 Engine Is A Hilarious Engineering Stunt
Engineering Explained2 HN recommenders · 2022–2023
503K views · explainer · evergreen · Uploaded 2022-11-25
Engineering Explained examines BMW's Hydrogen 7, a V12 that burns liquid hydrogen or gasoline. He covers cryogenic storage at -253C and why the approach is impractical.
Cited in hydrogen threads as a clear explanation of why burning hydrogen in engines is a poor idea.
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8 comments from Hacker News
As a great follow-up, Engineering Explained did a video on BMW's hydrogen car that used liquid Hydrogen. [VIDEO] TL;DW - Liquid hydrogen is an even worse proposition, despite offering greater density than hydrogen gas.
Yup. BMW made a liquid hydrogen-powered car and the result is...not good. Nothing more than publicity stunt. [VIDEO] The TL;DW is that since you can't keep it cold enough, eventually the liquid starts to convert to gas, pressure builds up in the tank, and a vent is needed to allow the hydrogen gas to escape. Which then poses a problem, since hydrogen gas is VERY explosive, you can't keep this car in your garage. You have to keep it outside. Then of course there's the issue of this comically large tank taking up the enter back of the car.
Maybe, but [LINK] is probably a better person to ask to explain why this is just not going to work, through his "The Unfortunate Truth About Toyota's Hydrogen V8 Engine" [1] and "BMW's Hydrogen V12 Engine Is A Hilarious Engineering Stunt" [2] videos. [1] [LINK] [2] [VIDEO]
There are a few issues with that car. [VIDEO] On the backdrop of the first thing - the part that caught my eye was "Liquid H2 Tank" which... well... yea. That's a different approach than a hydrogen fuel cell.
> There's just no logical reason to try and burn hydrogen in ICE engines. In commenting in another spot - [VIDEO] goes through many of the engineering and practicality reasons behind that.
If batteries has problems as a long term storage, hydrogen is even worse. If you store liquid hydrogen, you have to let the gas escape or risk explosions. Keeping things below -250ºC is not easy. Worth watching: [VIDEO] Every single actor is pushing for their own interests and highlighting the flaws of the competitors. You cannot say in good faith that hydrogen, nuclear or fuel are supporting the "renewable energy gang", or that they are not a gang themselves. In fact, my opinions is that nuclear gang was so against renewables that they missed the bus of "renewables + nuclear" friendly mix, letting the gas gang conquest "renewables + gas".
Toyota (in collaboration with Yamaha) is developing a V8 hydrogen combustion engine [1]. BMW is also developing a V12 hydrogen combustion engine [2]. "Engineering Explained" has put out videos on both, and neither of them sound very appealing to me. [3][4] [1] [LINK] [2] [LINK] [3] [LINK] [4] [VIDEO]
BMW tried that. You weren't allowed to park the car in a garage, because it had to vent the hydrogen as it thawed. [VIDEO]