World's First Public Hydrogen Fuel Station To Open

Munich, Germany, March 9, 1999... The world's first public filling station for
liquefied and gaseous hydrogen is now ready to open at the Munich Airport.
Featuring revolutionary, fully automatic technology, this filling station
supplies cars and buses with one of the world's most environmentally friendly
fuels: hydrogen.

Hydrogen, the lightest of all gases, is liquid only at temperatures below -423°
F. This is why it is filled into the tank of the car by robots at the fully
automatic filling station in Munich. The hydrogen then burns the same way as
in a conventional gasoline or diesel engine. Docking tests connecting the
filling pump with the tank of the vehicle were successfully completed shortly
before the new year.

Hydrogen is acknowledged by experts to be the clean energy of the future. It is
found in almost infinite quantities in water and burns together with oxygen
without leaving behind any harmful emissions. The only substance to leave the
car's exhaust pipe is steam. Hydrogen can be recovered from water with the help
of natural gas or by using electricity generated in a renewable process -- that
is electricity generated by solar, wind, hydroelectric or biomass energy.

Hydrogen energy is an ideal foundation for an ecological cycle because there
are no undesired exhaust emissions, there is no greenhouse effect, and there is
no worry about the limited supply of finite resources.

The hydrogen filling station at the Munich Airport is a joint venture with BMW
playing a key role. The first vehicles to benefit from the hydrogen filling
station will be BMW cars and airport buses. The cars will run on liquid, the
airport buses on gaseous hydrogen -- once the German TUEV Authority has
completed its last tests.

This world-first achievement marks the first step in the breakthrough of a
future-proof technology that has already made significant progress in the last
20 years.

BMW's first liquid hydrogen cars, duly approved by the TUEV Authority, were on
the road in 1979. Since then the fourth generation of BMW hydrogen cars have
debuted and have been in active service without the slightest problem. The
first liquid hydrogen filling station, in turn, started operation in 1990 in
the Bavarian Forest region, on the premises of SolarWasserstoff Bayern GmbH in
the small town of Neunburg vorm Wald. BMW research cars have been filled with
hydrogen at that filling station for almost 10 years - a process which
initially took roughly one hour and is now completed in just over two minutes.

In the year 2000 BMW will be presenting this technology of the future to the
public at large in a Worldwide EXPO Project. This will make BMW the only car
maker to offer a consistent and sustainable energy strategy beginning with
natural gas and culminating with hydrogen. Integral to the strategy has been a
close network of partners working with BMW on all aspects, from product to the
required infrastructure.