When BMW launched the fifth-generation X5 last week, one particular trim stood out from the rest. A white X5 with blue stripes marked its hydrogen-powered variant, one of the five powertrains the SUV will offer.
BMW will first offer the new X5 with hybrid gas and diesel powertrains, plus plug-in hybrid and fully electric options. The hydrogen-powered iX5 will arrive in 2028, the automaker said, without specifying which countries it will be available in.
It’s a notable bet on a technology that has long struggled to gain traction. Unlike EVs, which are backed by rapidly expanding public fast-charging networks and increasingly mature supply chains, hydrogen as a fuel source for cars remains largely experimental. Refueling stations are still sparse and concentrated in a handful of markets.
Photo by: Suvrat Kothari
In the U.S., for example, all of the 47 publicly available hydrogen refueling stations are in California, according to the Department of Energy. As of last year, more than 80% of the world’s hydrogen refueling stations were located in just five countries: China, Japan, South Korea, France, and Germany. There are far fewer hydrogen stations than there are gas stations or EV chargers. That’s partly why hydrogen-powered EVs like the Toyota Mirai, Honda CR-V e:FCEV, and Hyundai Nexo have struggled to deliver any meaningful sales volumes.
So why is BMW still betting on this technology? As renewable energy generation from wind and solar surges, the grid will need more avenues to store that power for when it’s actually needed. Grid-scale batteries are already doing much of that heavy lifting, but BMW argues hydrogen is a viable pathway too. When hydrogen storage becomes more popular, it will eventually spark growth in refueling infrastructure that could support cars, said Philip Koehn, vehicle line director at BMW Group.
“The hydrogen economy, if and when it develops, will most likely come alongside renewable energies,” Koehn told reporters at the X5 launch in Spartanburg, South Carolina, last week. Hydrogen, he added, can store vast quantities of energy.
Photo by: Suvrat Kothari
Several automakers in the U.S. are now using their excess EV-battery capacity to build shipping container-sized energy storage batteries. Hydrogen can play a similar role, and it’s already being used for energy storage and backup power by some utilities and industrial sites.
The logic goes something like this: surplus energy from wind and solar gets converted into hydrogen using electrolyzers, then that hydrogen is stored in tanks. That energy can later be converted back into electricity and deployed wherever it’s needed, whether that’s hydrogen-powered cars, freight, or industrial applications like forklifts.
On the iX5, here’s how the fuel-cell system will work: The vehicle has seven cylinders to store a total of seven kilograms (15.4 pounds) of hydrogen. Fuel cells then combine that stored hydrogen with oxygen from the outside air in an electrochemical process that generates electricity to power the motors. Its fuel-cell powertrain was co-developed with Toyota, which pioneered the technology on the Mirai.
BMW said the SUV will deliver up to 750 kilometers of WLTP range, which translates to about 400 miles EPA, and refuel about as fast as a gas car, with the hydrogen tank filling up in under five minutes. It will also be the very first all-wheel-drive passenger vehicle powered by hydrogen, BMW said. Both the Hyundai Nexo and the Honda CR-V e:FCEV are front-wheel drive whereas the Toyota Mirai sends power to the rear wheels only.
Photo by: BMW
On paper, the iX5, like the hydrogen cars that came before, sounds great—like a regular EV but with far quicker refueling times. There’s still no word on pricing, however, and while EVs are gradually approaching price parity with combustion models, hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles continue to be substantially more expensive.
There’s also the pesky issue of where exactly to refuel, and hydrogen’s other dirty secret. According to the Department of Energy, 95% of hydrogen in the U.S. is currently generated using fossil fuels, and that severely dents the technology’s eco-friendly bona fides. Renewable sources like solar and wind can pave the way for what’s known as “green hydrogen,” which is made using cleaner sources.
Research suggests hydrogen can complement battery storage rather than directly compete with it. Hydrogen has a genuine edge over batteries when it comes to the duration of energy storage. Battery energy storage systems are typically designed for quick charge and discharge cycles to smooth out grid fluctuations. Moreover, lithium-ion cells can’t sit at full charge indefinitely without losing energy over time. Hydrogen, by contrast, can be stored for months thanks to its very low self-discharge rate, according to one study.
That durability comes at a cost, though. The same research pegs hydrogen’s “round-trip efficiency,” meaning how much of the original electricity you get back after converting it to hydrogen and back again, at just 35% to 55%. Battery storage systems, meanwhile, run at 80% to 90% round-trip efficiency, and they benefit from an established, mature supply chain.
Photo by: BMW
That supply chain is evolving quickly too, with pricier nickel-manganese-cobalt cells increasingly giving way to cheaper, more durable lithium-iron-phosphate batteries and even sodium-ion cells. BMW’s bet is that if hydrogen emerges as that complementary storage solution, the refueling infrastructure needed to support it will follow.
In the meantime, the automaker says its hydrogen iX5 will feel like its battery-powered sibling in every other way, right down to the “Heart of Joy” computer that allows smooth cornering and braking and the same Gen6 high-voltage battery architecture.
BMW isn’t alone in refusing to give up on hydrogen technology. In addition to rolling out the new iX5 Hydrogen soon, it has been using hundreds of hydrogen-powered forklifts and trolley trains at its plant in Spartanburg for over a decade. Similarly, Hyundai Motor Group has been using its Xcient fuel-cell Class 8 semi trucks at its factory in Georgia for short distance hauling.
The Mirai has been on sale for years despite its dismal delivery numbers: just 210 units sold in the U.S. last year. Honda’s CR-V e:FCEV (that’s a plug-in hybrid mixed with a fuel-cell EV) went on sale in California in 2024. Hyundai is rolling out a next-generation Nexo overseas (even if the model is discontinued in the U.S. for the time being with availability here unconfirmed).
Whether hydrogen will boom thanks to growing demand for energy storage or just remain an expensive experiment is something only time will tell.
Contact the author: suvrat.kothari@insideevs.com