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BMW Is Still Going Against The Tide and Is Betting on Hydrogen, While Volkswagen and Tesla, Led by Billionaire Elon Musk, Completely Dismissed the Possibility
BMW is looking to accelerate its shift to achieve increasingly sustainable mobility. The company recently announced that hydrogen will be a key component in reaching its climate targets by 2030. However, BMW’s thinking contrasts with that of Tesla and the Volkswagen Group (VW) regarding the use of hydrogen in sustainable mobility sustainability.
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Recently, the BMW Group hosted the Central German Hydrogen Summit at its headquarters in Germany. The event once again demonstrated the group’s strong support for the use of hydrogen.
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“Our vision is to completely decarbonize production by replacing fossil fuels with future fuels in the form of green hydrogen,” highlighted the BMW Group. The company also announced that it is already using hydrogen in its factory to power tractors and machines.
BMW also stated that it expects to launch a hydrogen fuel cell SUV next year. This is a way for the company to show that BMW is betting on hydrogen on a commercial level as well, not just in its factories, under the BMW warehouses.
Competitors Don’t Think the Same Way
Both Volkswagen and Tesla do not bet at all on the future of hydrogen as a potential substitute for fossil fuels. Last month, Herbert Diess, CEO of Volkswagen, harshly criticized the idea of using hydrogen. Furthermore, he emphasized that the company is focused on the production of electric vehicles.
“While they are wonderfully versatile, you can’t expect them to replace fossil fuels on a large scale,” and “The decision of the Volkswagen Group is clear: as a large manufacturer, it is focusing on battery-powered electric cars for the masses.”
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, responded to the tweet from the CEO of Volkswagen, stating that he completely agrees with his colleague, while calling this idea “dumb”: “Diess is right. Hydrogen is a staggeringly dumb form of energy storage for cars. Barely worth considering it for a rocket upper stage, which is its most compelling use.”
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