Changing times, changing priorities. The future of the automobile.

[iYpSi]

I live in a major Russian city of Kazan. Over the past 3 years the number of cars in the city grew from 200,000 to 500,000, constant traffic jams on the roads at 3-5km, around the major routes to breathe nothing but public transport crowded subway covers only a third of the city, and get easier by car than by public transport. I hope only for electro motors!

[JimboUK]

Another thought pops into my head re electric cars, as Jim-uk will probably quite happily testify, here in the UK the energy companies are squeezing our nuts dry with the prices they're charging now, if we all ended up in electric cars and relied on the energy companies to keep us on the road, well you know where this going don't you ?

 

 

As a side note Vin, I love the sound of a Rover V8 lump, also the Jag 3.6 straight six and the Jag 5.3 V12 XJS, had em both, although I can tell you that the V12 XJS passes everything but the filling station :biggrin:

 

Not only the power companies, the government would need to replace their loses from fuel duty, if they put that on electric we'll all end up sitting in the dark.

[Vindekarr]

Indeed, That's something else hydrogen has in it's favour.

 

Hydrogen, for:

 

-It's ready now, technologicaly, this is old hat.

 

-It's proven, works well, is safe.

 

-Does absolutely no environmental damage.

 

-Hydrogen is the most common thing in the know universe, being a part of... well a helluva lot, all you need to do to get some is split it off other molecules, sounds tricky right? you can do that by simply sending a really big electric jolt through some water, that makes lots of hydrogens.

 

-When used, Hydrogen bonds with Oxygen, and we know what that makes-drinkable water.

 

Hydrogen, against:

 

-We simply dont have the infrastructure to make that much hydrogen at the moment.

 

-The industry required would play right into the hands of oil companies.

 

-To make hydrogen you needs lots of elctricity and lots of water, gotta get that somewhere else.

 

-If you get it on your trousers it may stain.

 

-Produces water as a byproduct, water = weight = very bad thing in cars.

[Marthos]

It seems that the cost of whatever alternative we look at is going to be horrendous.

 

As Jim rightly pointed out re the electric cars scenario, our goverments are going to want their pound of flesh, so we would also be forced to add a probably high rate of taxation to the cost of whatever alternative fuel we look at.

 

Its a pity, because hydrogen seems to be the most viable prospect at the moment, but add the possible heavy taxation to the cost of implementing the infrastructure required to the puchase cost of a hydrogen powered vehicle and most folks would be on shanks's pony.