Hydrogen drives – "Back to the future?"

Hydrogen drives for cars were researched in the 1970s as an alternative to petrol and diesel. They did not bring about a turnaround.

It is astonishing what a variety of ideas the engineers worked on back then – and what came of it all. Unfortunately, these and similar developments were never really made available to end users.

In the summer of 1977, Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk reported in its magazine “Umschau” on Ukrainian experiments with hydrogen as a fuel for cars. “If you run out of fuel, you drive to a water dispenser,” it says.

The test drives were all successful.

MDR Umschau, 1977

On drives in hydrogen-powered cars

Similar developments had also been under way in Japan since 1970. Researchers worked on suitable tanks for mobile storage and reached an astonishing top speed of 135 km/h.

In Germany, too, research on this topic was carried out, in some cases up to series production. Opel and especially Mercedes delved into this field. In the end, however, only a few vehicles were leased in 2018, and the market was left to Asian manufacturers.

In the GDR in 1979 – based on private initiatives – there were “top secret” developments of an emission-free drive using hydrogen peroxide, which can be seen in the museum in Chemnitz. Of course, this project also ended up in a drawer.