Intelligent Solutions Are Called For

The goal of sustainable mobility – First and foremost that means reducing CO2 emissions and other pollutants as well as reducing our dependence on petroleum as quickly as possible, while at the same time safeguarding a high degree of mobility. The 2008 Clean Moves Expo due to be held in April serves to underscore just how significant this topic has become in the automotive sector. An exhibition for energy-efficient mobility solutions held under the patronage of Germany’s minister of the environment, Sigmar Gabriel, this is the third time the Expo has been held as a sub-event of the Hanover Fair, the world’s biggest industrial show. Volkswagen will use this opportunity to once more present its Fuel and Powertrain Strategy to a large-scale audience.

The focus of the 2008 Clean Moves Expo will be directed at new market perspectives on electric drivetrains, second-generation biofuels, the latest developments surrounding natural-gas-powered vehicles and optimised diesel technology. “As a bridgehead to technologically overcoming one-sided dependencies in the petroleum age,” says Ralph Kappler, the initiator of the exhibition, “Clean Moves provides a market-oriented platform for presentation of the viable solutions which have already been developed.” Volkswagen’s display in Hanover will showcase a Golf BlueMotion, a compact-class model which offers a particularly low level of fuel-consumption as well as a variety of other exhibits, and will furthermore include lectures by Peter Weisheit on the topic of natural-gas-powered automobiles and by Dr Tobias Böhm on electrification of the powertrain.

Winning the End of Oil Game

The exhibition agenda will include a conference entitled “Winning the End of Oil Game”. This conference will be centred on the themes of electric powertrains, ethanol, second-generation biofuels and biomethane. Financing and investor workshops will also be on offer. The conference will provide a meeting point at which carmakers as well as fuel manufacturers, financial service providers and leading figures from the political and corporate communities can share information and discuss their respective perspectives.

Volkswagen’s Fuel and Powertrain Strategy outlines a clear path to sustainable mobility of a kind which not only makes economic sense, but which is ecology friendly and socially acceptable. Volkswagen wishes to make an active contribution towards reducing global CO2 emissions, cutting back local emissions such as nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, and, not least, limiting our dependence on petroleum.

To ensure lastingly secure energy supplies will require making efficiency enhancements and, more importantly, the use of alternative sources of energy over the medium and long term – most notably the use of renewable, CO2-neutral forms of energy. However, our strategy also makes accommodations for the continued use of conventional petroleum-based fuels.

Volkswagen Fixes Its Sights on Electric Drive

Volkswagen considers electric drive technology to have the greatest amount of potential for sustainable mobility over the long term, albeit that there is no telling right now whether the electricity used will be generated in a fuel cell using renewably generated hydrogen or stored using a battery. That is why Volkswagen is vigorously pursuing both technologies.

Germany’s federal government also believes in the potential of e-mobiles. “There is a lot to be said for using electric energy in transportation,” says Environment Minister Gabriel, emphasising the significance of electric drivetrains. “For one thing it can be generated from numerous different sources of primary energy and could therefore significantly reduce our dependence on oil imports. The use of renewable sources of energy for power generation, in particular, would result in a considerable improvement to the CO2 balance in traffic. In my view, the theme of electric mobility is one of the key building blocks for future sustainable mobility alongside the potential offered by alternative fuels and efficiency enhancements to conventional forms of drive.”

It is likely to take more than ten years, however, before these new technologies have secured a big enough share of the market to actually produce a significant degree of change. It is vital, therefore, to have a strategy at hand for the nearer future, i.e. a strategy which involves effective and realistic phased evolutionary development aimed at achieving sustainable mobility. That is why Volkswagen endorses the diversification of energy sources. Fuels should be made from different raw materials, distributed via the network of existing filling stations and they should be suitable for use in the automobiles currently on our roads. In addition, future fuels must possess the potential for use in even more efficient and cleaner generations of engine (engine systems such as the CCS combustion technique).

For more information:
2008 Clean Moves Expo at the Hanover Fair from 21 to 25 April
Volkswagen in Halls 27 and 16 at the Hanover Exhibition Centre