BMW has voiced disappointment over the news that UK transport ministers have apparently decided that fossil fuels will not be phased out for at least another 50 years. Ministers have also decided that the way forward in reducing CO2 emissions from the vehicle fleet is via hybrid electric technology, rather than the wholesale adoption of alternative fuels such as BMW’s hydrogen fuelled ICE.
UK government ministers have rejected a proposal from the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution that hydrogen should be widely used to power cars by 2025 in order to meet a target of reducing carbon emissions by 60% by 2050.
David Jamieson, the Minister for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, has said that renewable sources of hydrogen would not be available on a large enough scale to justify government support for a national network of hydrogen filling stations until after 2050. Without renewable sources of hydrogen, the net CO2 emissions reduction from hydrogen running cars would therefore be considerable reduced.
Chris Willows, BMW’s UK Corporate Communications Director, told just-auto that BMW firmly believes that hybrid solutions will ultimately prove more costly and inefficient because they involve two engines rather than one, and that the hybrid approach fails to grapple with the route of the problem.
He said: “Hydrogen brings zero emissions – hybrids won’t do that and end up costing more.”
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By GlobalDataWillows added: “We are looking for a joined up solution here, so that the infrastructure can be developed for the best long term solution to the problem of CO2 emissions. This is a political matter of the highest importance.”
Last week, Dr Helmut Panke, BMW’s Chairman, visited London on the first stage of BMW’s CleanEnergy World Tour 2002 – an event promoting hydrogen as the fuel of the future.
In a statement, BMW said that it is prepared to invest heavily in hydrogen technologies, but the precondition has to be a strong political commitment to hydrogen and that further investments can only be justified when infrastructure solutions can be developed and stable political frameworks can be implemented.
The company also said that under the right circumstances the BMW Group could consider the production of hydrogen internal combustion engines at its UK engine plant, Hams Hall in Warwickshire.