Frankfurt motor show: Automakers go green, will clients follow?



by Bill Ickes Tue Sep 11, 11:52 AM ET
FRANKFURT (AFP) - The Frankfurt Motor Show pushed its green theme to the limit Tuesday, but if heads of the world's biggest auto companies were clearly on board, questions remained about whether clients would follow.
Chinese and German automakers skirmished meanwhile in a copyright spat over the four-wheel drive CEO model, produced by the Chinese company Shuanghuan and which BMW claims was copied from its own discontinued X5 sports utility vehicle (SUV).
US giant General Motors was among carmakers introducing new designs that focused on sustainable mobility, the show's theme, rolling out several cars aimed at sharply cutting fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions.
"It's neither feasible, nor optimal for our industry to continue to rely almost exclusively on oil to supply the world's automotive energy requirements," GM chairman and chief executive Richard Wagoner told banks of reporters and company executives as he presented his strategy for the future.
One day earlier, Wagoner's Japanese counterpart at rival Toyota, Katsuaki Watanabe, told a press conference that competition in the field of hybrid cars was good for everyone because progress made by one automaker benefited all.
Toyota leads the industry with its Prius hybrid that combines an electric motor with a petrol engine, while GM has invested heavily in developing so-called E85 capable cars that use gasoline with a stiff shot of ethanol.
The US automaker, running neck-and-neck with Toyota this year for the title of world's biggest car manufacturer, also presented an Opel concept car that runs on electricity, along with a dollop of diesel to recharge the batteries.
GM's European president, Carl-Peter Foster, told reporters that automakers would probably rely on a range of solutions, with no single technology covering all needs to begin with.
"I think that basically what you will see is a competition of various technologies and ultimately the one that best suits the needs" of specific segments would win, Foster said.
"I think that alternative fuels have to play a larger role," he added, along with electrification, which was cheap to produce and integrate into vehicles.
Even German luxury sports car maker Porsche showed a hybrid version of its Cayenne SUV, keeping to the German Automobile Federation's slogan for the show: "See What Will Move Your Future."
German giants Volkswagen and DaimlerChrysler sent flotillas of "clean cars" to the fair, and fuel consumption and CO2 emissions replaced, temporarily at least, horsepower or torque as sector buzz words.
Clean is not cheap however, and analysts question how many customers will dig deeper into their pockets to prove they are environmentally concious.
Wagoner told reporters that GM was happy to build eco-friendly cars, like its low-slung silver electric Volt model that glittered under metallic trees, but that making them affordable was tough.
The issue was supplying them "in a way the consumer feels like its a good value," he said. "That's the challenge."
BMW faced its own challenge with the Chinese-built CEO. But despite disclosing last week it had launched legal action against the importer of the CEO, it said it did not plan to immediately confiscate the two models that were on display.
"We are not planning anything tomorrow at 9:00 am," a BMW spokesman said Tuesday, although he refused to rule out further action.
German manufacturers are believed to be wary of getting on the wrong side of Chinese authorities given the country's massive market, but trade and copyright issues nonetheless keep cropping up between European states and the Asian giant.
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 companies from around 40 countries showed wares at the Frankfurt fair, one of the world's biggest, amid a blitz of bright lights, beautiful models and men in business suits.
The emphasis on cleaner cars comes in part because automakers are under pressure from the European Commission to cut CO2 emissions sharply by 2012 to around 130 grams per kilometer.
Opel's Flextreme concept car was designed to run around 55 kilometers (34 miles) on electricity while recharging with a small diesel engine.
That would meet the needs of 75 percent of European commuters, according to GM research, but emit less than 40 grams of CO2 per kilometer and use less than 1.5 litres of diesel fuel per 100 kilometers, a feat by current standards