Faster, stronger, bigger – such aspirations are a thing of the past. The latest International Motor Show (IAA) held in Frankfurt in September 2009 might have been renamed the Electric Motor Show. Every major manufacturer presented an electric car – or at least a hybrid model combining a petrol or diesel engine with a battery drive. The IAA 2009 was nothing less than a turning point in the global auto industry. It was an unprecedentedly “green” motor show. The message from Frankfurt was that carmakers are facing up to the global discussion on climate change. What was shown at the world’s most important mobility fair could well be moving the world soon: the new models are environment-friendly, economical and modest. 753 exhibitors from 30 countries, including 62 car manufacturers, were represented in Frankfurt. This was a veritable firework display of innovations with 82 world debuts – including 42 from Germany alone.
Take Volkswagen, for example. Europe’s biggest carmaker presented a concept study for a one-litre car (i.e. fuel consumption: one litre per 100 kilometres, or 235 miles per gallon), unveiled the electric version of the “Up” compact car (due to go on sale in early 2010), and caused quite a stir with the world’s most fuel-efficient car: the Volkswagen Polo Blue Motion, which will travel 70 miles on a gallon of diesel fuel. The ultra-low-fuel Blue Motion version of its bigger brother, the Golf, manages only ten miles less. Even more impressively, the latest addition to Mercedes’ globally successful Smart family of microcars gets by without any fuel at all: in future there will also be a model with a lithium-ion battery pack. Even sports cars will be zooming around without damaging the environment in the future. And they will still look exciting, as shown by BMW’s motor-show star, the M1 Vision. You won’t find a twelve- or even eight-cylinder engine under its sleek, low bonnet, but a combination of three-cylinder diesel and two electric motors. Even that beloved relic of GDR automotive culture, the Trabant or “Trabbi”, celebrated its “rebirth” as an electric car in Frankfurt, having had its smelly, rattling, two-stroke engine replaced by lithium-ion batteries.
So were there none of the usual high-performance racing cars that auto fans all over the world are always looking out for? Of course there were. At the Mercedes stand, for example, where the SLS with its gull-wing doors shimmered in the spotlight: a super sports car with eight cylinders, 571 horsepower and a top speed of 317 km/h! And the petrol version will soon be joined by – an SLS model with an electric drive.
