(cm/red) At this year's International Motor Show in Geneva gasmobil AG (1) presents a prototype of a car with so-called Clean Engine Vehicle (CEV) technology, which was jointly developed by EMPA and ETH Zurich together with industrial partners. With this prototype, the ETH-Domain project novatlantis and gasmobil AG officially start their partnership to promote natural and biogas as sources of energy for sustainable (2) mobility. The new car is on show and can be viewed in the shape of a VW Golf; from 4th to the 14th March at stand no. 4131 in Geneva.

According to the makers, thanks to CEV technology (3) natural gas can be used to fuel the car, which even complies with California's rigorous SULEV emissions standards – the strictest in the world – and which clearly undercuts the Euro 4 standard. This technology brings a CO₂ emission reduction of up to 30 per cent compared to a car run on customary petrol.

For its part, gasmobil sees natural gas, in combination with biogas, as a new market for gas distribution outlets. The goal is to raise the number of cars run on gas to 30,000 by 2010 in Switzerland.

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Goes on gas: variant VW Golf.

With novatlantis gasmobil considers it has found a reliable partner to determine the potential environmental advantages of using natural and biogas by developing the prerequisite technology and demo projects. The prototype on show at Geneva's International Motor Show is the first of three CEV test cars that novatlantis will introduce to everyday conditions and to the public in the pilot region of Basle.