BMW's recently intensifying push for fuel cell electric vehicles , the firm says, is not too dissimilar to its relationship with battery-electric vehicles .
Still, the bigger question that had plagued hydrogen power all along - and which arguably still does today - is whether the world around is ready. As we've mentioned, it doesn't matter how polished an FCEV is if hydrogen refuelling infrastructure simply isn't sufficiently widespread. And other major powers like China and Japan have also laid out plans within the decade to accelerate investments in related facilities for production.
Amidst the ambiguity, one of the larger criticisms levelled at FCEVs is that they are less energy-efficient compared to BEVs. "Are we able to have access to critical raw materials, and are we able to recycle it? That becomes more of an issue than efficiency," he opines. "Because in the end, if you concentrate very much on energy efficiency, but you don't have the raw materials, [and] you don't have the electricity, what do you do?"
As with other technologies, economies of scale promise to make FCEV-manufacturing cheaper over time. Just as crucially, however, BMW believes the estimated linear cost of increasing infrastructure to support FCEVs to be more promising from a financial standpoint against the non-linear cost of increasing the number of charging stations - a task that will become more complex over time.