Eco-friendly cars will play a leading role at Hokkaido G8 summit

Heads of states will be transported on board of hybrid and hydrogen-fuelled cars

The Hokkaido G8 summit, scheduled from the 7th to 9th of July, will be dominated by topics such as record oil prices, economic problems as well as environmental issues.

However, alongside the heads of state the foreground will also be taken by hybrid cars and hydrogen vehicles that have been placed at the organizers’ disposal by Japanese automakers.
Toyota will provide 78 hybrid vehicles which will be used to shuttle government and media representatives; they will offer the international press the opportunity to test drive them.

Among the cars there are 11 Lexus LS 600 h sedans, 15 Crown Hybrid sedans, 43 Estima Hybrid minivans and, in addition to that, there will be 5 hydrogen-powered buses and a Prius Plug-in, a version on which the Japanese engineers are working to see if and when to introduce the rechargeable car.
Nissan will be there too with the X-Trail Clean Diesel prototype that will be exhibited at the venue's International Media Centre.

The Hokkaido summit will be totally dedicated to environmental issues and green energies, these latter on the agenda of the energy ministers now in Japan for holding a meeting before the G8 summit.

Japan’s government is about to introduce tougher regulations against pollution (scheduled by October 2009) and that will have dramatic spin-off on the car market. Anyway, thanks to the clean diesel technology developed by Nissan, the group will thus be capable of meeting the higher standards set by the government with the new M9R engine
which, co-developed with Alliance-partner Renault, uses very innovative solutions such as modulated-kinetic (MK) combustion, high-performance nitrogen oxides catalysts and an advanced particulate filter control system.