I think the future belongs to alternate fuel cars. You take your pick but it is a given that in the next decade, you will see cars that are lighter, maybe smaller, and will not run on gas (petrol).
So the technologies are:
Hybrid - the most popular these days
Natural Gas - Popular in places like Pakistan
Flex Fuel - ethanol based
Electric - which I want to being dominant going forward
Fuel Cell - which GM is banking on but it will need a lot of work.
Any others?
I like electric because it gives me freedom from any kind of fill up station. Be it gas, natural gas, ethanol etc. I come home, I charge it up, I go the next day. There is little infrastructure changes that will need to be made for this to work, as appose to say fuel cells which will require an almost over haul of the way energy for transportation is distributed. Though electric cars have a long way to go, mainly cos currently they can go up to 150 miles before charging, which is not good enough for most drive loving Americans and then there is the cost issue … but I have hope!
I know European car makers are banking on Diesel by marketing it cleaner than ethanol and more efficient than hybrid but I doubt they will go very far with it.
Which one of these technologies do you think will finally take over as the the evolution of this century cars?
I wouldn't call it evil but it's definitely not as green as some people make it out to be. Not to mention the current method of mass producing it, primarily from corn has destructive effects on world wide food prices.
Though according to one report on NPR, it only costs $100 more to make a car flex fuel. The Ford's first car, the Model-T was flex fuel. So, why not make all cars flex fuel as a standard? If people can pay $700 for a spoiler in the back, I am sure a $100 more for flex would be an easy sell.
There is some research going on in making ethanol from things like fungi or harvesting certain kind of non-food based crop. Who knows, maybe they will have a break through.
From carbon emissions stand point, it's marginally better than gas.
until there is production of that fungii, which if we are talking about the same technology is a decade away, ethanol would have a disastrous impact on food prices. already there have been food riots in several countries, directly impacted by the rise of subsidy driven corn production.
I would vouch for electric cars and would further enhance the technology by adding solar cells on them. Doing that you can go on longer drives provided there is sunlight.
Electric isn't that green. It would require a huuuuge investment in power production which could either pump or carbon waste or pump out nuclear waste.
I think diesel will win in the short term. Horses in the long term :-p
Actually electric in the long term. Once people accept that nuclear energy and lots of it is the future.
I recently saw a news abt car running on water although that is not sustainable but it would be cheaper ....who knows one day water is as expensive as petrol!!
I am counting on electric, not just because thats the way to go, but because I specialize in "High speed Motor Drive Systems" as an engineer, so better future prospects for me if this technology goes mainstream! hehe
For now its not FAST enough to produce enough oil. Plus, it gets contianaminated really fast. It is v.sensitive, needs just right enviroment (over a LARGE area of land).
Hence people are exploring ... down the road when the barrel is $200ish then everyone will be growing this in their house and it will be more practical :)
