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British inventors offered £10m prize to design green family car

Severin Carrell
Sunday 27 April 2003 00:00 BST
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Britain's car makers and back-street inventors are being offered £10m in prize money in a race to design a new ultra-clean, planet-friendly car. The government-funded competition will be unveiled by the Transport Secretary, Alistair Darling, on Tuesday in the hope that it will lead to the discovery of a "green" car so cheap and popular it will rival sales of the Vauxhall Astra and Ford Fiesta.

Ministers want engineers to design the prototype for a mass-market family car that will be twice as fuel-efficient as today's average vehicle – and one that can be on the road within a few years.

The £10m in prize money will be split between a handful of winning designs over the next three years.

The competition is likely to promote research into highly advanced hydrogen fuel-cell cars, battery-powered vehicles, petrol-battery hybrids and engines that run on fuel made from straw, sugar beet and sawdust – "biomass" fuel.

It will be called the Ultra Low Carbon Car Challenge; winning vehicles must emit less than 100g of carbon dioxide per kilometre – much less than the 170g per km that the average new car releases.

The Department of Transport says its main goal is to design "an affordable ultra-low-carbon passenger car, capable of mass production within a near to medium time scale, at a competitive price".

But the car's emissions will be measured "from well to wheel" – favouring advanced "zero-emission" engines that use hydrogen and batteries. If the car uses petrol or electricity, the efficiency figure must include the global warming gases given off by refining and transporting the petrol or by generating the electricity – which can be as high as 15-20g per km.

But experts are accusing the Government of being too timid. They claim the competition's fuel efficiency targets and financial rewards are too low, since the world's largest car makers, such as Ford, General Motors, BMW, Toyota and Honda, are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in designing zero-emission cars that run on hydrogen.

Several hydrogen-powered and hydrogen fuel cell cars are already being road tested by BMW, Ford, Honda and Mercedes, and should be on sale within three to four years, albeit at very low levels.

Ministers want the prize to help British engineers close the rapidly growing gap on their US and Japanese competitors. They also fear it could take many years before these cars will be attractive to a mass market and enough refuelling stations will be ready, and they want to accelerate this process. Some experts predict it could take until 2020 before hydrogen and fuel cell technology will dominate the car market. Critics point out that European car makers have already volunteered to cut the average carbon emissions in normal petrol cars to 140g by 2008. The latest small cars, such as the Audi A2, the Smart or Citroën C3, have emissions as low as 110g.

Julie Foley, an environment and transport expert at the Institute for Public Policy Research, pointed out that Japan and Germany have major green fuel research programmes. And despite his strong oil industry links, President George Bush announced a $1.2bn (£755m), five-year programme to build hydrogen-fuelled cars this year.

Ms Foley said: "This challenge isn't terribly challenging. It won't pay for innovative fuel cells. That entire budget would be eaten up by one demonstration project."

Britain's main industry body, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, said ministers should only offer this prize for technologies that experts know will succeed – hydrogen fuel cells and battery-petrol hybrids.

Clean machines already on the road

TOYOTA PRIUS

Power: Petrol-battery hybrid

What is it? A mid-sized four-door saloon, similar to Corolla. Leonardo DiCaprio owns four

Top speed: 98mph

Availability: Worldwide

Green rating **

THINK

Power: Electric battery charged from mains

What is it? Plastic-bodied, super-mini two seater

Top speed: 56mph

Availability: On test in London and Edinburgh, built in Norway

Green rating: *****

HONDA FCX

Power: Hydrogen fuel cell, using compressed hydrogen

What is it? Two-door city car

Top speed: 90mph

Availability: On test in Tokyo and Los Angeles. On sale in Japan this year

Green rating: *****

AIR CAR

Power: Compressed air

What is it? Models include a four-seat taxi and a light van

Top speed: 60mph

Availability: Made by small firm MDI in France and US

Green rating: *****

FORD FOCUS FLEXIFUEL

Power: Ethanol-petrol mixture, using 85 per cent ethanol from paper waste

What is it? Modified version of Ford's best-selling estate

Top speed: 115mph

Availability: Sold in Sweden

Green rating: ***

BMW 745h

Power: Liquid hydrogen used in combustion engine

What is it? Converted executive 7-series saloon

Top speed: n/a

Availability: 15 vehicles on test worldwide. On sale: 2007

Green rating: *****

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