Held every year in Austria, this event is the equivalent of a Davos for engines. Due to the opening up of e-fuels and the growing interest in direct hydrogen combustion, hydrogen was clearly the centre of attention at the International Vienna Motor Symposium.

This type of event is always full. Over the three days event, it was attended by 1,000 participants and representatives from industry and academia from 25 countries. The plenary sessions feature high-profile speakers such as Sung-hwan Cho, CEO of Hyundai Mobis, Thomas Schmall, Member of the Board of Directors of Volkswagen AG, Stefan Hartung, CEO of Bosch, and Christoph Starzynski, Vice President of Mercedes-Benz. There was also Gerald Killmann, head of research at Toyota Motor Europe. The latter outlined a strategy ranging from hybrids to fuel cells.

There was also talks about e-fuels, with a presentation by HIF, the service provider of Porsche’s project in Chile, on the theme of “not a dream but a reality”. Aramco, Neste, Concawe (a research institute in Brussels), LBST in Munich and E4Tech in England spoke about carbon-free fuels that can be produced from hydrogen.

Regarding hydrogen, there were sessions on the fuel cell and on the engine. As regards to the fuel cell, players such as AVL, cellcentric, Cummins, FEV, Magna Powertrain, Plastic Omnium spoke, as did the University of Aachen. As for the H2 engine, presentations were given by Aramco, Borgwarner, Bosch, Hyundai, Punch Torino, Toyota and Volvo Trucks. There was even a specific session on hydrogen combustion with FEV, Westport, JCB, TNO (Dutch Research Institute) and Scania. And another one on hydrogen storage for which Air Liquide spoke with Forvia.

Article written by Laurent Meillaud and translated by Logan King