(Wed 23 Jul 08)

It had to happen sooner or later. Nissan has become the first manufacturer to send a hydrogen fuel cell car round the Nürburgring circuit in Germany, where racing driver Frank Eickholt established a lap time of 11 minutes 58 seconds in an X-Trail FCV.

This is far from being the fastest ever lap round the track, of course, though at €1.3 million the FCV is probably one of the most expensive cars ever to make the attempt. Other fuel cell vehicles will certainly go quicker, and in fact the Nissan would have done so to if Eickholt hadn't had to contend with terrible weather conditions.

"If the course hadn't been so wet, I could have gotten more momentum out of the curves," he said afterwards. "Thirty to forty seconds could have been shaved off for sure."

The X-Trail FCV, which uses an electric motor with a power output of around 120bhp, has been undergoing trials in Japan and California since 2006. The development process is therefore still at a relatively early stage - Nissan is working on ways to improve durability, to find a better way of storing the hydrogen, and to reduce the overall cost of the vehicle. The company hopes to have fuel cell vehicles in production by 2015.

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