The world's largest car manufacturers have been airing their opinions on the rise of fuel cell and hybrid vehicles.

During a conference in Germany, representatives from the car producers saw fuel cell vehicles increasing their market share, but differed over the extent and speed of this shift.

According to Reuters, German automotive supplier Continental suggested sales of hybrids could rise to nearly two million vehicles a year by 2012.

DaimlerChrysler's Christian Mohrdieck discussed his company's aims.

"By around 2015 we will have an overall fleet of up to 100,000 vehicles world-wide and, in my view, from around 2020 at the earliest fuel cell cars will make up a single-digit percentage of new car registrations," he said, Reuters reports.

Volkswagen's Wolfgang Steiger argued that hybrid vehicles could reach half the market for new cars by 2050, although Gerhard Schmidt, Ford's research head, saw this as overly optimistic.
   
Charles Stone, research head at Canadian fuel-cell company Ballard Power Systems cited cost and durability as the biggest obstacles to the technology.

Platinum is used in some petrol engine catalytic converters and in all diesel engine catalytic converters.

It is also used as the catalyst in many types of fuel cell.

Ÿ Adfero Ltd