Volkswagen will limit the production of passenger cars running on hydrogen fuel for the foreseeable future. The German auto giant will instead focus on further developing electric vehicles, Volkswagen CEO Thomas Schafer announced in an exchange with AutoBild Spain. He says that hydrogen as a vehicle fuel has some major drawbacks compared to the battery technology used in electric vehicles.
Citing this reason, he further stated that hydrogen fuel cell technology is not for Volkswagen, at least not for the next ten years. “It’s not competitive, especially not for passenger cars, in terms of cabin space. Possible for commercial vehicles, but not in passenger cars. So I don’t see this happening in this decade. Not at Volkswagen,” Schafer said.
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The Volkswagen CEO sees a greater opportunity to develop pure electric vehicles, as more and more customers want to switch from cars powered by internal combustion engines to electric vehicles, with the company’s total global sales coming in. 2022 will be down 7%, but with impressive numbers on the EV front.
Interestingly, the German automaker’s CEO’s comments come at a time when several major global automakers such as Honda, Toyota, Hyundai and BMW are exploring hydrogen fuel cells as a transmission technology. replacement action. These automakers are investing large sums of money in developing hydrogen fuel cell technology. In fact, car brands like Toyota, Hyundai and Honda have launched their respective cars in the segment. BMW launched the X5 with this technology. However, these do not seem to bother Volkswagen, as it aims to follow its own principles.
Interestingly, hydrogen is considered a pure form of zero-emission fuel, since the only exhaust from it is water. The main disadvantage of this technological infrastructure is the high cost and lack of infrastructure to support this.
First published date: February 1, 2023, 5:09 PM IST
