OK, now I know why it's BMW that is going after Hydrogen powered ICE engines as the new, new solution to a carbon free transportation fleet  The engine type they are talking about is the horizontally opposed configuration, which BMW uses in its motorcycles.  I had one back in the 70s, a horizontally opposed twin, air cooled in those years, the BMW R100RT.



There is nothing special about this engine design that makes it better for hydrogen than the in-line configuration.  It's advantage in motorcycles is it has less vibration and gives you a smoother ride.  However BMW long experience playing with this engine using different size cylinders to generate power probably gave them an idea on what would work best with hydrogen as the fuel.  So they probably took some of their older engines and tested them and found a good one to use,

Far as hydrogen being a "new" fuel just discovered, that's ridiculous.  The only thing new is that as it has become cheaper to generate electricity with renewables, it's coming closer to the cost of using fossil fuels as they get more expensive.

This IS a means of powering even big rigs without carbon, as long as the juice is generated by wind/solar/hydro/nuke.  You also can rapidly refill the tanks.  So where is the problem?

It's the fact hydrogen is a gas, and to have enough of it on board your vehicle it either has to be highly compressed or in liquid form, which takes temps close to Absolute Zero.  The 2nd method is impractical for small vehicles like cars.

The 1st method is practical, but a compressed hydrogen tank in a car accident is a freaking nightmare waiting to happen.  When the valve breaks off, the tank blows out like a missile, the gas all mixes with air and POW, hollywood style explosions on the freeway.  How they figure to deal with this little safety problem I have no idea.

The other problem is the infrastructure of filling stations and big compressed hydrogen tanks at every convenience store to have a supply on hand to sell to the happy motoristas.  Then the big compressed gas supply trucks, and finally tankers with super cooled hydrogen moving around as well.  All of the have to be built.  We have LNG tanks that could be adapted, but not enough of them to handle a whole fleet of cars and trucks powered this way.  It will take a while to manufacture all that and get it in place.

Will this fit into the mix to keep the techno-futurist dream alive?  It's conceivable, but time is short I think to get it done.

https://www.ecoticias.com/en/hydrogen-engine-united-states/1088/

The engine that is turning the United States upside down: it is 80 years old and runs on a fuel that we have just invented

RE