Anyone knows this car?- a Hydrogen V12 (750hl)

it is an E38 750hl….yes it is very rare and at the Moment you will see none. They were delivered to 100 German Politicians and Movie Stars to test them.
They run on Hydrogen Gas. That is right! The use H2 in a combustion engine (V12). The car has less power (250bhp) than the Petrol equivalent due to different engine Setup. But I think that concept is great. At the Moment it is put on a stop, because it uses way more oil to creat H2 than it saves. And plus is that a new Design for the fuel tank had to be developed, but still after 4 Days over 50% of the hydrogen Fuel was diffused throgh the walls. But a sideaffect is that BMW discovered that Rotary engines actually work better for this cause the hydrogen creates water in the engine, which is bad even in vaporised form. So it Needs some oil constantly to be lubricated. Something a rotary engine already has. Look it up in the German Wikkipedia it is way better described.

Comments

Lassë Lund

Is this a development now?
Got a bit confused because the E38 isn’t really from this time, so i was just wondering

02/01/2016 - 15:43 |
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well this was the first of them. They had cancelled the Project with the 760hl E68 for a time. It is back since 2012, but the powers of developement went to build the i8 and other hybrids. The Technology seems not to be usable in a good amount of time. But I think Mazda should be on top of it to save their rotary engine. Do you speak any german? : https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_Hydrogen_7

02/01/2016 - 15:47 |
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Fastlane Blocker

it is very interesting, and i tried to make it as short as possible, cause People around here go for a look and never read over 2 lines of solid text.

02/01/2016 - 15:48 |
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Andrés Cely Herazo

I was obsessed with it when I saw it on a BMW magazine when I was just a little child. I think that most of the car knowledge I have today is because of that vehicle.

02/01/2016 - 15:57 |
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yeah for me, too I was 12 yeárs old in 2003 when I read about it and I thought, yeahhh still can make engine noise if oil is out…

02/01/2016 - 16:02 |
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Lassë Lund

And already by mentioning those bits, you have almost already made your money back

02/01/2016 - 17:00 |
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yep….always a good Thing. Doors are worth sth. , too. and the scrap Yard takes the rest for free. You do not get anything anymore (if the car is complete you might get 50-150€) but Money is yours.

02/01/2016 - 17:08 |
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Joe Thach

Interesting read

02/01/2016 - 17:40 |
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Antiprius

Hydrogen brap could be a thing? WANT!

02/01/2016 - 20:59 |
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Régis

Hi,
Lot of missinformations about the two BMW 7 Series H² concept.

THe first thing you noticed (and everyone noticed) is the down on power.Let me expalin why an ICE engine burning H² will be down on power compared to a gasoline sucking one.

Take a small amount of hydrogen , you will see it’s very light and with a lot of energy … but at the same time this small amount of hydrogen takes a LOT of place.Now takes the same amount of energy (joules) but due to gasoline, this amount of “material” will be heavier but takes a very tiny space.This comparaison is behind the down on power of H² burning ICE.The H² inejcted takes so much space, the engine become not able to fill it’s cylinder with air properly, or as good as an gasoline engine.Less air into cylinder, less possible combustible burning and thus down on power :)

Second chapter,
Why a Wankel engine is better suited for H² burning?

Hydrogen burn pretty fast, in fact so fast that his combustion in an alternative piston engine can be destructive (like engine knock)It’s interesting for efficiency (isochore combustion) but if you destroy your engine it’s pointless …The air/gasoline combustion time on a Wankel is one of the major drawbacks that made the Wankel so rubbish (suks!) in term of efficiency (quantity of mécanical power exiting the engine on quantity of chemical putting in the engine)

Thanks to the ultra fast burning of the air/H² mixture, Wankel engine gain a lot in thermal efficiency, so gain a lot where it sucks the most (heat loss) by avoiding loosing all the H² heat into the stator wall.By fast burning the heat is exposed to less surface and thus mostly the “same” warm surface and thus there is lot less heat loss.Less heat loss result in more mecanical work and thus better efficiency.that’s why internal combustion rotary piston engine are well suited to H² burning

.… and not for the production of vapour water and oily stator wall … gasoline burning engine also produce a lot of water ;) (C8H18 molecules (mostly) so add O² = production of heat and CO² and H2O :) )Hope this helps

02/01/2016 - 21:47 |
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Fastlane Blocker

In reply to by Régis

yeahh I know some of that stuff. wanted just a quick sum up, so that people could read for them selves. And thanks for the better explanation. I wrote that article in about 5 minutes and read about hydrogen car when I was 18 …now 25. So sorry if not everything was correct. But I thought wankel engine is better because the lubrication from fuel is not required that much.

02/01/2016 - 22:06 |
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Daniel Busker

i’ll take this one because v16

02/01/2016 - 22:54 |
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well not hydrogen. And they just build it for the case Mercedes has something big when they had the 500E developed by Porsche. But it was not that a-bomb they feared and just upped the power of the E34M5 by 25bhp to be on the Top again.

02/01/2016 - 22:57 |
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InjunS2K

Mazda did the same with an RX8. Dorito nuke power!!!

02/02/2016 - 09:19 |
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