Brad Pitt showed up to the premiere of his new movie, Ocean's 13 in a BMW Hydrogen 7 yesterday. Most of the onlookers at Grauman's Chinese Theater probably didn't even notice, since the car looks just like the regular BMW 7-Series.
The production ready prototype that Brad Pitt drove in was unveiled by BMW last year. The interesting thing about this car is that it doesn't rely on fuel cells or electric motors, instead it just burns hydrogen.
The car is capable of going 125 miles in the hydrogen mode and another 300 in gasoline mode. If the car didn't have to have storage for the gasoline, the car would be able to travel further in hydrogen mode.
Full Story: egmcartech
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Comments (10)
Good thing he can afford it.. no one else can. Considering also the fact that the fuel cells have a life of 5,000 hours in use. (204 days.)
Posted by Ignatius | June 7, 2007 8:01 AM
Posted on June 7, 2007 08:01
Er, my mistake. 208 days. Anyway, with current prices at $500,000 to $1,000,000 for a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, ranges at a mere 120 miles on hydrogen and $3-5 for fill-up... isn't that a bit more expensive than a $50,000-60,000 battery electric car that gets 80-100 miles per charge and costs $1 to fill up? :P
Posted by Ignatius | June 7, 2007 8:28 AM
Posted on June 7, 2007 08:28
What is all this about fuel cells. There are no fuel cells in the car. It burns liquid hydrogen in a normal combustion cycle.
Posted by Tony | June 7, 2007 9:45 AM
Posted on June 7, 2007 09:45
I think the car could run on the sheer power of Brad's ego.
Posted by George_in_VA | June 7, 2007 11:09 AM
Posted on June 7, 2007 11:09
The hydrogen doesnt burn, it reacts with the oxygen producing electricity and water, so basicaly its an electric car with batterys (in this case, hydrogen cells)
Posted by Rafael | June 7, 2007 3:05 PM
Posted on June 7, 2007 15:05
No, it does not use hydrogen to produce electricity. It is an entirely different type of hydrogen car. The Hydrogen 7 has a 6 liter V12 that burns gasoline or hydrogen, with two fuel tanks, one for gas, one for hydrogen. Hydrogen is flammable, and does indeed burn well in an internal combustion engine. The BMW engineers have said that if they designed the engine to run solely on hydrogen they could have gotten a much higher range out of it, not to mention close to 500-600 bhp. But, because it is designed to run on either hydrogen or gasoline, it only produces around 300 bhp.
To sum up:
There is no fuel cell in this car. It is not an electric car.
Posted by Bimmerman | June 7, 2007 5:10 PM
Posted on June 7, 2007 17:10
Some sources:
http://www.bmwworld.com/hydrogen/stragegy.htm
http://www.roadandtrack.com/article.asp?section_id=18&article_id=4627
Posted by Bimmerman | June 7, 2007 5:20 PM
Posted on June 7, 2007 17:20
BMW has had this technology (burning liquid hydrogen in regular engines) for 30 years now. Really people, learn something about the car before you start in on all the fuel cell crap. It's Americrap and Japanese companies that are interested in fuel cells.
Posted by Remy LeBeau | June 7, 2007 11:35 PM
Posted on June 7, 2007 23:35
it is because you have to extract hydrogen first. it is not free or cheap as oil.
you have to burn oil to get electricy then extract the hydrogen.
fuel cell tech is considered an alternative to batteries.
they're not the only one to learn something.
Posted by adrian | June 8, 2007 1:32 PM
Posted on June 8, 2007 13:32
You damn stupid, Ignatius!!
u r such an asshole...
Fuel cells may be very expensive right now.. That's why all the companies and researchers are working their asses off to lower the price and increase the performance.
You fucking go and do some research and find out what fuel cell really is...
Posted by fuel cell man | September 3, 2007 3:12 PM
Posted on September 3, 2007 15:12