Toyota and BMW form alliance to produce hydrogen-powered cars

Toyota and BMW will upgrade their partnership in hydrogen fuel cell cars, Nikkei Asia reported, citing the two giants as seeing these as environmentally friendly models with great potential amid slowing demand for electric vehicles.

Toyota and BMW will sign a memorandum of understanding next week and will announce the details at a BMW press conference on September 5. The German automaker aims to start mass production of a hydrogen-powered vehicle in the next few years.

Toyota and BMW have been collaborating on hydrogen vehicles since 2012, but the Japanese automaker’s role was limited to supplying a limited number of components. But now, under the upgraded partnership, Toyota will supply BMW with more important components for the vehicles, including hydrogen tanks and fuel cell systems.

BMW will then use its own developed electric vehicle (EV) technology, such as the powertrain, to produce the rest of the car. The German automaker has already developed a hydrogen-powered concept car called the iX5 Hydrogen.

The concept is expected to be powered by two hydrogen tanks and have a range of more than 500 km, with the ability to refuel in just 3-4 minutes. The concept car is based on BMW's X5 SUV.

The iX5 Hydrogen is likely to be the first hydrogen-powered vehicle to be mass-produced by BMW in the coming years. By using Toyota's fuel cell system, BMW will be able to significantly reduce the development and production costs of this model.

After the iX5 Hydrogen, BMW also plans to launch various hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicles in the 2030s.

As for Toyota, the group is known as the leader in mass-producing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. The company launched its own model, the Mirai, in 2014, ahead of its competitors worldwide.

However, because the Mirai is a pioneering model, its price is quite high, exceeding the 7 million yen mark (about 1.2 billion VND) in Japan, leading to its lack of acceptance by users. Through cooperation with BMW, Toyota also aims to reduce the price of hydrogen-powered cars by sharing key components that account for the majority of car production costs.

In addition to manufacturing, the Toyota-BMW alliance will increase cooperation in developing hydrogen supply infrastructure in Europe. According to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, there are only 270 hydrogen filling stations across the region, far fewer than the 632,000 public EV charging stations expected by the end of 2023.