April 24 th  2002

BMW woos UK in clean fuel venture 

Source:ICW

Britain has enormous potential to promote and advance the hydrogen
society, Dr Helmut Panke, the designated chairman of the board of
management of BMW, told MPs, industry experts and academics at
London's Science Museum.

The British capital is the first European stop in BMW's Clean Energy
World Tour 2002, which aims to promote the introduction of hydrogen
as the fuel of the future and to establish partnerships with other
organisations to help make this a reality.

Since the Royal Commission for Environmental Pollution required a
60pc reduction of the greenhouse gas CO2 by 2050, hydrogen is
becoming an increasing important focal point for long-term energy
planning in the UK - the cleanest fuel in existence.

When liquid hydrogen is used to power an internal combustion
engine, no CO 2 is generated. BMW's vision is that hydrogen,
produced from water using power generated by renewable resources
(sun, wind, wave, hydro-electric),

IT'S 75 years since the first Volvo car was produced on April 14,
1927.

The rest, as they say, is history, with Volvo establishing its own
strong, Scandinavian identity and becoming one of the best-known
car companies in the world.

Over the next few months, Volvo will be celebrating its birthday and
outstanding achievements in style across the globe.

The fireworks and celebrations started in Gothenburg with a gala
banquet in the presence of the King and Queen of Sweden and will be
followed by a special stop-over by the round the world Volvo Ocean
Race and a cavalcade of historic is made available via a network of
liquid hydrogen filling stations. In this way, minimal amounts of
greenhouse gases are produced throughout the whole process.

Great Britain has considerable energy and production resources to
offer and has the potential to play a leading role in and benefit from
the establishment of a hydrogen-powered economy.

Firstly, the potential resources of renewable energies such as wind
and wave power are among the largest in Europe, which can be used
to generate the electricity needed to extract hydrogen from water by
electrolysis.

Thus, logically, Britain could Volvos through the city in the summer.

Here in the UK, there's a Volvo owners' day at the Heritage Centre at
Gaydon, Warwickshire on September 1. And to mark its global
presence Volvo is donating a car to a be a major producer of
hydrogen in Europe.

The BMW Group is prepared to invest heavily in hydrogen
technologies but the precondition has to be a strong political
commitment to hydrogen. Further investments can only be justified
when infrastructure solutions can be developed and stable political
frameworks can be implemented.

In the right circumstances the BMW Group could consider the
production of hydrogen internal combustion engines at the UK engine
plant, Hams Hall in Warwick-shire as an option in the future.

The end of the age of fossil fuels will not mean the end of the car, or
of the demand for personal mobility and BMW is leading the world in
liquid hydrogen internal combustion engine design and development.

In just a few years' time, BMW will be the first automobile
manufacturer in the world to launch a series production
hydrogen-powered saloon car, based on the current 7 Series model.

BMW has developed a "biva-lent" internal combustion engine which,
uniquely, can run on both liquid hydrogen and petrol.

Using this engine, customers can drive the car without any in-UNICEF
campaign aiming to reduce death and diseases related to unclean
water in poor counties.

Over 12m Volvos have been produced since the first 2.0-litre, 28 bhp
convertible `V4' model in 1927. Volvo now has convenience, even
before a complete network of hydrogen filling stations is established,
using petrol if the next hydrogen station is too far away. factories in
Sweden, Belgium, Holland, Thailand, Malaysia and South Africa, and
achieved record exports to countries such as Russia, China and
Mexico last year.

It was 44 years ago that the first Volvos came to the UK.

Dr Helmut Panke said, "For this reason I am confident that our
bivalent concept will be an important key to the introduction of a
hydrogen infrastructure." Already prototype cars have racked up
over 100,000 trouble-free miles - which is four times around the
equator - during the development process.