BMW has an answer for fuel

That is at least partly true, but those inside the companies do have hearts — and many share our worries. Some have even bigger concerns. BMW, for example. It would be easy to dismiss the German carmaker as a badge brand that is all about flash cars.

Look at its headliners — the M3, the new 135i coupe and the forthcoming X6 — and you wonder where the company is going. And why.

But talk to its Australian chief, Guenther Seemann, and you see another side.

The transplanted German, who arrived in Australia after time in South Africa, China and Dubai, is a deep thinker worried about the future. And not just the future of his sales and profits.

“What do we do when petrol is $4 or $5 a litre? Or even when it is $2 a litre?” he asks.

“People will react. They will decide it does not make sense to be burning this oil, that it must be used for other things that are more important, like making medicine.”

He knows we are approaching a tipping point in the car industry and, while batting the BMW position on future technology, asks how others will get through.

“People will not give up their mobility,” he says. “Humans are a mobile race. We will not want to lose our personal transportation. We believe hydrogen is the solution. We've been working on this for more than 30 years.”

Seemann is not just talking about electric fuel-cell cars, which use hydrogen to generate on-board voltage, but internal-combustion engines that can use hydrogen as a replacement for petrol. BMW has taken a high-profile approach to its first luxury hydrogen concept car, the Hydrogen7, by offering it to film stars and celebrities for testing.

Keys to the cars have been handed to Prince Albert of Monaco, actors Cameron Diaz and Will Ferrell, television presenter Jay Leno and opera star Placido Domingo.

However, Seemann knows there is no way of creating that hydrogen or delivering it to the equivalent of a 21st-century petrol station.

“The alarm clock went off some years ago, but many people are still sleeping,” he says.

“No government, anywhere in the world, is thinking ahead far enough."

“They only think about the next four years, to the next election. Australia is the best country for making hydrogen. We have so much sunlight and water. And yet ...”

He believes green pressure will grow quickly in coming years, but so will the demand for cars that do more with a litre of fuel — whatever that fuel might be.

“Car companies can react very quickly to pressure. But the only real pressure comes from customers,” Seemann says.

BMW will build its first hybrid using the new X6, but has yet to commit to any sort of fuel-cell car for production.