BMW partners up with Anglo American Platinum and Sasol to develop South Africa’s fuel-cell car ecosystem

BMW has gotten into a partnership with Anglo American Platinum and Sasol in order to to develop infrastructure that will encourage the production and use of hydrogen-powered vehicles in South Africa.

The is for BMW to provide its fuel-cell iX5 sport utility vehicle, while Sasol will be supplying green hydrogen. According to a statement, the platinum mining company Amplats, will be working with the partners “to help develop a local green hydrogen mobility ecosystem”.

Hydrogen vehicles are struggling to take off because of high costs and a fledgling fuelling infrastructure. The top emitter of greenhouse gases in South Africa, Sasol has partnered with Toyota on a pilot project to research the use of the fuel along freight corridors two years ago, while Anglo American invested as much as R1.3-billion on 220t hydrogen-fuelled vehicles.

Across the world, there are only about 60 000 fuel-cell cars on the road, and according to BloombergNEF estimates, that compares with a fleet of roughly 19 million battery electric vehicles.

At a Cape Town conference, Peter van Binsbergen, who is the CEO of BMW Group South Africa, said BMW is “still trialling” the technology that uses green hydrogen as it gauges the market and will need to see lower costs. A fuel infrastructure would need to follow in order to move toward a bigger roll-out, he said.

The global transition to lower carbon sources of energy will pose a challenge for the country, which relies on coal-fired power plants for most of its electricity generation. The nation also faces high unemployment, which could worsen through any potential erosion of demand for its minerals.