The following article appears in the March/April 2007 issue of Technology Review.

By the time Klaus Draeger, BMW's manager of research and development, took the microphone at a Berlin hotel last fall, the assembled journalists' bellies were full of mint juleps--and it all started to make sense. Maybe the world's oil crisis and the threat of climate change could be sensibly addressed by using hydrogen as a transportation fuel. Draeger sketched the alluring vision of a future in which high-performance luxury cars burn hydrogen and emit mostly water vapor. The hydrogen could someday be provided by renewable sources of energy, he said, and nobody would have to make any sacrifices. And we journalists would get to drive the first such cars the following day.

"You'll be pioneers! You will be sitting at the wheel of the Hydrogen 7, driving through Berlin and the country­side. And for the first time, you will drive this hydrogen-powered luxury saloon," Draeger exclaimed, using the Britishism for "sedan." BMW will lend 100 of these cars to yet-unnamed public figures as part of its global clean-energy promotional campaign. In some ways, the campaign resembles GM's effort to tout its own hydrogen-car program. GM's focus is on a futuristic fuel-cell car. The BMW version uses internal combustion: it burns hydrogen rather than skimming off its electrons. Same message, though: hydrogen is the answer.