FRANKFURT (Reuters) -- The European division of General Motors began a campaign today to sell more fuel-efficient vehicles in a move to polish its green credentials.
Senior executives gave a taste of their plans at a news conference in Berlin ahead of the biannual IAA motor show in Frankfurt in September, where it plans to unveil a next-generation hydrogen fuel cell vehicle as well as showcase its new family of down-sized conventional combustion engines.
"Just a few years ago, certainly the emissions theme was very much on everybody's mind but we should not forget behind this is a question how can we sustain mobility, which is so important for our economic prosperity," GM Europe President Carl-Peter Forster told reporters.
The premier model to be launched in 2008 will be the 1.3 liter Opel/Vauxhall Corsa with 75 horsepower, which emits 119 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer using a common rail diesel turbo injection (CDTI) system that squirts fuel into the chamber at a pressure of 1,800 bar.
The European Commission wants to force carmakers to reduce CO2 emissions from new cars to an average of 130 g/km across the fleet by 2012 -- a goal seen by many in the industry as very ambitious.
The new Opel/Vauxhall gasoline and diesel engines to be included in the ecoFLEX models outperform their naturally aspirated cousins by reducing consumption and pollution through lower friction and increased thermal efficiency, GM Europe said.
"It is for us more important that CO2 levels of our entire fleet is reduced than having single models with extremely good numbers," GM Europe Vice President Hans Demant said, in an apparent reference to Toyota's heavy marketing of its niche model, the Prius hybrid.
GM will roll out an E85 bioethanol derivative of its Cadillac BLS sedan later this year, while Opel/Vauxhall and Chevrolet will adopt the technology as of 2010.
Between 2007 and 2012, GM Europe plans to launch 16 new engine families with a total of 93 variants, as well as 10 transmission families with 48 variants.
GM will present the HydroGen4 -- a European version of the Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell -- at the IAA in Frankfurt, which will update an Opel Zafira HydroGen3 vehicle which Swedish furniture giant IKEA has been using for the past two years as a delivery van in Berlin.
The U.S. carmaking giant aims to develop so-called "E-Flex" cars that allow the installation of multiple propulsion systems into one common chassis with electric drive.
"The technology breakthrough still needed to implement E-Flex in production vehicles is a high performance lithium-ion battery. Experts expect batteries of this kind to reach production maturity between 2010 and 2012," GM said.
It has named German auto parts supplier Continental AG and U.S. firm Compact Power to assist on the project.
