By Scott Hillis
BEIJING, Nov 18 (Reuters) - China, guzzling petrol at a furious pace amid breakneck economic growth and car buying, should wean itself off oil by promoting vehicles powered by hydrogen, General Motors executives said on Tuesday.
Executives from the U.S. auto maker will show off their latest concept cars to Chinese officials including Zeng Peiyan, minster of the powerful State Development and Reform Commission.
The centrepiece of the GM Tech Tour that has included stops in San Francisco and Tokyo is the Hy-wire concept car that is powered by a hydrogen fuel cell and uses electronic steering, acceleration and braking.
Unlike a traditional internal combustion engine that burns petrol to drive pistons and turn a car's wheels, fuel cells generate electricity from a reaction between hydrogen and oxygen, with water being the only byproduct.
"We see markets like China as potentially an excellent entry point for the technology," said Julie Beamer, GM's director of fuel cell commercialisation.
Chinese officials will have a chance to climb in the video game-like cockpit of the futuristic Hy-wire, twisting grips on the steering wheel to send the silvery car scooting down a test track with a soft electric whine.
But fuel cell technology is not without its drawbacks.
Hydrogen is highly flammable and leaks easily, making it tough to transport and store safely.
Creating enough pure hydrogen to power a fleet of cars could require big processing facilities. Critics say those plants would likely be powered by oil or coal, simply shifting the pollution from tailpipes to smokestacks.
IS HYDROGEN KEY?
Wang Hongwei, director of corporate planning for Shell China, said promoting hydrogen could cost China from $6 billion to $19 billion to build processing plants and distribution networks.
The hydrogen industry in China was "effectively zero", Wang told reporters, adding: "China is still not in the picture yet."
GM's fuel cell promoters aim to convince China of the company's belief that it can make fuel cells commercially viable by 2010.
"There is no country for which this technology is more relevant or for which the opportunity is greater than China," Phil Murtaugh, GM's China chief executive, told reporters.
China's car production surged in the first three quarters of the year to 1.44 million cars, up 87 percent from a year earlier. GM's China sales rose 38 percent in the period.
That has helped fuel petrol demand and also sparked worries over pollution and traffic congestion.
Lester Brown, head of the Earth Policy Institute, said fuel cells were preferable to combustion engines, but said there were other drawbacks to promoting a fuel cell in every Chinese garage.
"If China were to develop the U.S.-style auto-centric economy and auto-centred transport system, it would have to pave over an area equal to about 60 percent of the riceland in the country," Brown said. (Additional reporting by Tamora Vidaillet)