This month Stuart Rose, the environmentally minded chief executive of Marks & Spencer, will become part of an initiative to make the way we drive free from carbon emissions.

Mr Rose, who is planning to take M&S carbon-neutral by 2012, is one of a group of business people and politicians who will take delivery of a BMW 7 Series gas-powered car.

The German carmaker aims to convince opinion-formers that liquid hydrogen is the way forward. If they agree, it hopes that they will build political pressure for financial and regulatory incentives to establish a hydrogen highway – the infrastructure to support the next generation of green vehicles. At present there is only one liquid hydrogen filling centre in Britain – in Wembley, West London – meaning that the cars, which arrive in Britain next week, will have to stay within range of it or use their alternative petrol power. Even in Germany there are only six such filling stations.

The six-litre, 300bhp cars have been developed to run on petrol or liquid hydrogen. Only 100 have been produced and they are not available to buy. BMW says that this is an exercise in promoting hydrogen technology and its involvement in the project rather than a means to sell cars.

Moreover, it knows that this is a long-term game. It expects that the fleets being provided now to several countries will sow the seeds of a fuel revolution that may take 20 years to flourish. In Germany the carmaker has estimated that it will cost €23 billion (£15.6 billion) to install 2,000 hydrogen filling points. Uwe Ellinghaus, BMW’s British marketing director, said: “The chicken and egg debate has now been resolved.

BMW can produce hydrogen-powered cars on the production line and the time is right to make hydrogen a viable fuel.’’ BMW believes that hydrogen is the only realistic alternative to fossil fuels. Ironically, most of it is generated from fossil fuels because using a greener source, such as solar power, is very expensive.

Most other carmakers are putting hydrogen development at the heart of their environmental research. DaimlerChrysler, for example, plans to roll out its second hydrogen concept car to test drivers next year.

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