By Rebecca Harrison
PARIS, Sept 26 (Reuters) - It has noisy engine, no gear stick and no brake pedal. It purrs across tarmac spewing nothing but water from its exhaust pipe.
Yet the car being trumpeted as the vehicle of the future by the world's biggest auto maker accelerates quicker, looks sleeker and might not cost more than most high-end vehicles on the road already.
General Motors Corp.'s Hy-wire concept car, unveiled on Thursday at the Paris autoshow, is the world's first driveable vehicle to combine environmentally-friendly hydrogen fuel cell power with new hi-tech drive-by-wire -- or electronic -- controls technology.
The car aims to look and feel flash as well as being good for the environment and will be on the road by 2010, Larry Burns, vice president of R&D and Planning at GM, told Reuters.
"With Hy-wire we're reinventing the car... it's more fun to drive, it's roomier, there are fewer design constraints and it will eventually be safer," he said on the sidelines of the Paris autoshow. "We are aiming to have cars like it on the road by the end of the decade."
The sporty but elegant four-door car is operated by electronics instead of conventional mechanical cables, all tucked out of sight inside the all-aluminium chassis and controlled from a single "docking port", or steering unit, that looks a little like a giant video game control.
Once in the plush leather driving seat, the driver can speed up or grind to a halt simply by squeezing the side of the steering wheel, and can slide the unit over to the passenger side to convert to a right or left-hand drive.
No engine compartment means no bonnet, so for an extra futuristic effect, the front and back panels are made entirely of glass.
THE FUTURE'S GREEN
Both by-wire control technology and fuel cell power have been used before, but it is the combination of both in one car that makes Hy-wire unique.
The model is part of GM's drive to become the first firm with a million fuel cell automobiles on the market. Some other manufacturers have said it could take decades before the man in the street is driving a fuel cell car.
Developing a viable and attractive model for mass use is essential if the car industry, and the environment, is to survive, Burns said.
"The car industry is realising that if we want our children to grow up and buy more cars we need to find a model that is environmentally sustainable," he said ahead of a presentation of the car to reporters.
And he shrugged off criticisms that the cars, powered by electricity generated from mixing hydrogen with oxygen, can currently only run for around 220 miles, or around 400 km before they need refuelling, insisting that the technology would soon be there to recharge quickly.
"Eventually we should get to a stage where you can charge up your car at home just like you charge your mobile by using an electrolyser appliance to extract the hydrogen that would then be used to power the car," he said.
Burns admits that cutting costs on the Hy-wire to a level where he can meet GM's five percent profitability targets, and where enough people buy it to have a real impact on the environment, will be tough.
"Our challenge is getting costs down and we need to be cheaper by a factor of 10 right now," he said, declining to specify how much it currently cost. "But I'm confident we can do that.
And once the technology is refined, it should produce better economies of scale, because the system can be fitted into any type of body, meaning lower costs for the auto giant and better profitability.
"The industry is suffering from excess capacity and squeezed margins and is very capital intensive," he said. "Once we crack this, we could be on to a new business model whereby one size fits all."