Courier Mail
Saturday 26/1/2008 Page: 15
BMW's Hydrogen 7 has received a green thumb's up from Planet Ark chairman and founder John Dee. "It's very impressive," Dee said after a short drive around Melbourne city streets this week. "It doesn't feel any different to the normal 7 Series, but all that is coming out of the exhaust is water vapour. "What is interesting is that if they just tuned it for hydrogen it would be even better. It could be a whole lot faster. "The future of motoring will not be a compromise like this." The Hydrogen 7 has a limited top speed of 230km/h, but is a little slow off the line with about 9.5 seconds from 0-100km/h.
However, Lotus has produced a Tesla electric car capable of more than 0-100km/h in four seconds. "Most people think these alternative fuelled cars are a golf buggy on valium, but they can be better performers than petrol cars," Dee said. "The only thing holding them back is the lack of infrastructure and the fact that to create hydrogen uses more energy than it produces. However, there are a lot of ways to create hydrogen with minimal environmental impact." Hydrogen requires a lot of electricity to separate the gas from water.
However, Dee said solar and wind energy could be used in the process so that it was carbon neutral. "For it to come to fruition you need an alliance of car manufacturers, government and corporations to help with cars and the infrastructure. "The future of motoring will be a combination of electric and hydrogen cars."
Planet Ark was founded, with former tennis ace Pat Cash, to campaign governments, industry and the public for greener alternatives.
www.planetark.com
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