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Manufacturers Are Banking on Hydrogen And Filling Up at Munich Airport

21 January 2000

Like MAN and BMW, Now Other Manufacturers Are Banking on Hydrogen And Filling Up at Munich Airport; Hydrogen Is Catching On

    MUNICH, Germany, Jan. 21 -- The hydrogen filling station at
Munich's airport is pretty busy these days.  Following BMW and MAN to the
pumps, Mercedes A-class electric car is filling up with the fuel which car
developers believe has a great future.  The magic fluid concerned is hydrogen:
practically the only byproduct of combustion of this fuel is water.  In future
electric cars could be getting their power from a fuel-cell battery containing
hydrogen.
    Since May 1999, CleanEnergy 7-series BMW vehicles have been refilling at
the fuelling robot at the first ever liquid hydrogen filling station, sited at
Munich airport.  Since then these shuttle vehicles have covered more than
10,000 kilometres carrying 500 VIPs, including five presidents and numerous
ministers, into and around the airport.  Only just recently, the Minister of
Transport of Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, had himself
chauffeured in the CleanEnergy car, and showed intense interest in the
vehicle.
    This is a proud record for BMW engineers and the world's first hydrogen-
powered car they developed.  The whole project -- a joint venture involving
13 well-known firms including the BMW group, MAN AG, and FMG, as well as the
Bavarian state government -- was executed without a hitch.
    In the long term, the goal of the BMW energy strategy is that liquid
hydrogen should take the place of today's fuels.  Just a few days ago, the
content of this concept was recognised in an interim report published by the
German Initiative for Economical Energy Strategies in Transport (VES), a joint
initiative by the German federal government, power and automobile companies.
The report says that hydrogen has the best prospects for the future -- in
particular for combustion engines.  Co-operating under the VES umbrella are
the automotive companies BMW, DaimlerChrysler, MAN and VW, with Aral, RWE and
Shell representing the power suppliers. Germany's Transport Minister Klimt
described the VES as "one of the most important initiatives in the transport
sector during this period of legislature".