Lpg ... The Case Against

The Age

Wednesday October 1, 2008

Richard Blackburn

A Volkswagen executive claims LPG is unsafe and "past history". By Richard Blackburn.

ONE of the motor vehicle industry's most senior executives says LPG vehicles are like carrying a bomb in the car, while fuel-cell vehicles are a pipe dream.

Volkswagen's global head of sales Detlef Wittig says LPG vehicles are "past history already"."

It's not very elegant, it's dangerous still - you carry a bomb, that's not the future fuel technology," he says.

Mr Wittig's views will come as a shock to Holden and Ford Australia, which have invested heavily in the technology as one of their key alternative fuels because of its low price and abundant availability in Australia.

Mr Wittig says ethanol is not a long-term fuel alternative either."

That is not the future. The future is electric engines. We are fully concentrating on electric engines."

He says fuel-cell vehicles are not the answer."

We have been running fuel-cell cars for 10 or so years now and we haven't seen any major progress there. It still has all these disadvantages: when it's cold, when it's freezing."

We can imagine that small fuel cells might run the electric operations in a car, but the whole engine, we don't really see a very serious future for it. It's a pipedream."

Mr Wittig says the German car maker will have a plug-in electric vehicle on the market within three years.

Volkswagen is developing a plug-in electric hybrid along similar lines to General Motors' Volt concept.

The car will feature a small petrol engine that acts as a generator for the car's electric motor. On electric power alone, the car will have a range of only 50 kilometres, but with the petrol engine acting as a backup, range extends to 600 kilometres.

Unlike the world's most popular hybrid, the Toyota Prius, the "twin-drive" Volkswagen Golf will allow the driver to choose electric-only operation at the touch of a button."

You can run at your own disposition at zero emissions," MrWittig says.

He says battery technology is the key to the success of plug-in hybrids, because better batteries will allow the car to run at zero emissions for longer.

He admits that the "twin-drive" Golf's current electric-only range is not enough because women in particular won't be comfortable with the car's limited range for city journeys.

© 2008 The Age

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