Today’s high oil price and environment issues have increased the interest in developing energy sources as alternates to petroleum, expected to complete deplete in the near future.

Automobiles, the symbol of industrialization, are no exception.Advanced countries are actively researching alternative energy to replace gasoline and most of them agree that hydrogen will be the new energy source for automobiles.

According to Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) Commissioner Jung-Sik Koh’s research on the trend of patent applications, the number of patent applications related to electric automobiles was 100 in 2000 and has increased at an average of 7.3% a year to reach 142 in 2005. In 2006, however, the number shot up to 275, a 94% increase over the previous year and a 275% increase over 2000. It is expected that such drastic increases in the number of applications will continue.

Interestingly, there was not a single patent application related to automobiles using hydrogen fuel cell before 2000. In 2000, the number of such applications was 27, and until 2005, the number averaged around a mere 11 per year. In 2006, however, the number jumped to 43, an increase of more than 300%. Such a large increase indicates the direction of technological development regarding electric automobiles.

Currently, 30% of patent applications related to electric automobile are related to hybrid automobiles, in which an internal-combustion engine, together with an electric motor, generates motive power. As Toyota’sPRIUS has shown, hybrid cars are the type of next-generation automobile closest to commercialization. However, as today’s hybrid automobile also uses petroleum as its energy source, it is difficult to say whether it will truly be the choice of the future.

As an alternative to electric automobiles, European carmakers are starting to develop automobiles with hydrogen engines (internal- combustion engines). One example is the Hydrogen 7 introduced by BMW, a German carmaker.

As the pressure to develop a hydrogen-fueled automobile rises, due to today’s high oil prices, researchers are turning their focus from hydrogen fuel cells, which have many difficulties to overcome before commercialization, to internal-combustion engines using hydrogen, which are not only the main motive power of today’s automobile but also the accumulation of technology as long as the history of automobile itself. In other words, internal-combustion engines using hydrogen can be commercialized faster than hydrogen fuel cells.

As hydrogen is expected to be the energy source for future automobiles, the focus of automobile development leading to the hydrogen economy era will be on hydrogen fuel cell automobiles, a true ZEV, or Zero Emission Vehicle, with high efficiency and no pollutants, rather than hybrid or hydrogen engine automobiles.

2008-08-11 –  [KIPO]