VW thinks ahead

The company's head of corporate research gives his views on fuel cells, hydrogen, smart cars, CO₂, and the linking of spark-ignition and diesel engine technologies.

Ulrich Eichhorn's job is thinking ahead. Not just weeks or months, but years. “The automotive future has not been written yet, but we can, at least, try to shape it and get things going in the right direction,” he said. Visualizing that future shape, plus the size, priorities, potential problems, and political volatility, is an almost impossible task, but one that highly prominent automotive engineers like Eichhorn must face.

As Head of Corporate Research for the Volkswagen Group he is one of perhaps a dozen first-division forward-thinkers who will influence the way the world will travel over the next 10 to 20 years-and perhaps beyond. That period may include the use of cells using hydrogen, although in high-volume production terms such a development could be way out in the future, believes Eichhorn-further out than many other manufacturers have indicated. The short- to medium-term future will certainly see increasing use of “smart” systems, although the day of the totally automated car, in which a driver is virtually redundant, may never dawn, says Eichhorn.