MINI Hydrogen Hybrid – Is This For Real?

Could “The Holy Grail of Hybrids” be coming soon inside a MINI? Parent company BMW has been testing them for years and with emissions-free zones coming soon throughout Europe, the timing might be right…

As I’m sure you remember from your high school chemistry class, Hydrogen is the single most abundant element there is. None of this bothersome fossil fuel nonsense; it’s everywhere, it’s powerful (think H-bomb), and it produces zero emissions. Hydrogen is the Holy Grail of hybrids and it’s been tested in BMW 7-Series cars for years. Rumor is that actress Hilary Swank is tooling around Southern California in one.

The system uses a small, 5-kilowatt hydrogen fuel cell supplied by a tank of compressed hydrogen to power an 82-watt electric motor that drives the rear wheels. Something called a supercapacitor – which can quickly store and release power at very high voltages – acts as a buffer between the fuel cell and the high loads. If you blow this engine, you blow up your block!

BMW is attempting to stay ahead of the curve on zero-emissions power sources to gain entry into emissions-free zones coming soon to your favorite European cities. If you enter the zone with an emissions-sputtering vehicle, you will be shot! Ooops, I mean, taxed. Very heavily.

Obviously, car makers see this as an attractive market, so they’re all clamoring around in lab coats to see which hybrid makes the most sense. But even though it’s so abundant, it takes a lot of energy to capture and store it, and right now there are not a lot of folks lining up to agree to store a high pressure fuel source under high pressure. Nor are there many out there willing and able to make hydrogen fuel pumps. And so it goes…

Still, a zero-emissions hydrogen powered MINI does sound intriguing, doesn’t it?