Road to the Future
Interview with Herbert Kohler, Vice President Group Research Advanced Engineering, Vehicle and Powertrain, Chief Environmental Officer
How do you expect vehicle emissions to develop worldwide?
On account of the growing demand for mobility in the emerging markets and developing countries, there is a risk that global CO2 emissions due to private transport will initially increase.
That sounds rather fatalistic.
No, it's a critical reflection. However, with modern, innovative vehicle technology we have the opportunity to prevent this possible increase — or at least to keep it to an absolute minimum.
That forecast, by contrast, sounds very optimistic.
Recent developments in Germany are setting a positive example. In western Germany the CO2 emissions of passenger car traffic decreased by 17 percent between 1990 and 2006, even though people did more driving. During the same period there was a strong increase in CO2 emissions in eastern Germany because of the tremendous pent-up demand for new vehicles after German reunification. That demand has now been generally satisfied, so we're going to see decreasing emission levels there as well.
Can this conceivably also happen in the rest of the world?
Yes, with a certain period of delay. The rule of thumb is that the later a country launches a process of mass motorization, the more modern is the technology available to it. We must therefore make this technology available and affordable as soon as possible, so that growing mobility can be decoupled from an increase in CO2 emissions.
Would fuel cell vehicles be one example?
Yes, I'm absolutely convinced that fuel cell technology combined with the production of hydrogen from renewable energy sources, for instance, will be an essential element of the solution to this problem.
