China, consuming petrol at a furious pace amid break-neck economic growth and car buying, should wean itself off oil by promoting vehicles powered by hydrogen, General Motors executives said on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
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Executives are to show off their latest concept cars to Chinese officials including Zeng Peiyan, minster of the powerful State Development and Reform Commission, the report said.
The centrepiece of the GM Tech Tour that has included stops in San Francisco and Tokyo is the Hy-wire concept car that is powered by a hydrogen fuel cell and uses electronic steering, acceleration and braking, Reuters said.
“We see markets like China as potentially an excellent entry point for the technology,” Julie Beamer, GM’s director of fuel cell commercialisation, told Reuters.
The report said Chinese officials will have a chance to climb in the video game-like cockpit of the futuristic Hy-wire, twisting grips on the steering wheel to send the silvery car scooting down a test track with a soft electric whine.
Wang Hongwei, director of corporate planning for Shell China, told Reuters promoting hydrogen could cost China from $6 billion to $19 billion to build processing plants and distribution networks.
The hydrogen industry in China was “effectively zero”, Wang told Reuters, adding: “China is still not in the picture yet.”
The news agency said GM’s fuel cell promoters aim to convince China of the company’s belief that it can make fuel cells commercially viable by 2010.
“There is no country for which this technology is more relevant or for which the opportunity is greater than China,” Phil Murtaugh, GM’s China chief executive, told Reuters.
China’s car production surged in the first three quarters of the year to 1.44 million cars, up 87% from a year earlier, and that has helped fuel petrol demand and also sparked worries over pollution and traffic congestion, Reuters said.
Lester Brown, head of the Earth Policy Institute, told Reuters fuel cells were preferable to combustion engines, but said there were other drawbacks to promoting a fuel cell in every Chinese garage.
“If China were to develop the US-style auto-centric economy and auto-centred transport system, it would have to pave over an area equal to about 60% of the riceland in the country,” Brown reportedly said.
