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

[Marthos]

I agree to all of that Vin, but one thing troubles me, you've mentioned it and its a biggie.

 

The battery.

 

We've come along quite nicely just lately with battery technology, but I think we're a fair way off getting a battery that will do all that is required for electric cars to the extent that they can readily replace our current petrol and diesal vehicles.

 

Plus, the production cost and negative enviromental effects of producing said battery will possibly outweigh the benefits of having an electric car, which is a damn shame really as there aren't many more viable options available to us.

 

Think I'll buy a horse.

[WizardOfAtlantis]

Last time I was in Amsterdam, I saw something that stopped me in my tracks.

 

I was walking along a canal, and I looked up to see a Tesla car parked by the canal and hooked up into an electric recharging station.

 

Gods, I was seeing the Future...but in the Present!

[marharth]

I don't think it would matter if we got the technology.

 

It depends on the costs and the money the companies get from it. I doubt car companies would want to destroy relations with foreign oil just to make a safer car.

 

It has to do with money in the long run. As I said before cars are not going anywhere unless car companies can find a better way to make money.

[Vindekarr]

I agree to all of that Vin, but one thing troubles me, you've mentioned it and its a biggie.

 

The battery.

 

We've come along quite nicely just lately with battery technology, but I think we're a fair way off getting a battery that will do all that is required for electric cars to the extent that they can readily replace our current petrol and diesal vehicle.

 

You've got me on that one.

 

More developement time is needed-I have little doubt we'll work something out, with about 80% of the world's biggest manufacturors making fun, useful electrics their main goal, and with the shear one-upmanship that occurs when a car maker finds a new niche, I think we'll be in electrics by 2050.

 

One alternative we do have is Hydrogen Fuel Cells, they're ideal for our purposes, but it would be very dificult to implement them. We've got hydrogen tech already, but we dont have the infrastructure to mass produce it on the scale needed to power hundreds of millions of hydrogren cars. A hydrogen car works like anything other electric, but it runs on hydrogren which is pumped in like fuel. Auto journalist James May described the process as "it's just as easy as fueling up any other car, and has a similar range, you've just got to be a little careful you stick the hose on properly though, or you might get hydrogren on your trousers!"

 

As for the Tesla, it's a good proof that electrics arent boring, it's just as good looking as any petrol sportscar, and according to a revie i read in the esteemed Drive magazine, it's pretty good on the road too.

 

As for the money. Car companies smell profit in eco vehicles-they know that's where the money is at now. People dont want to feel guilty when they get in their car every morning, and with that, and the technological benefits, electric and hybrid vehicles are surprisingly good sellers. And it's also spiralling-the more hydrids on the road the more they make, the more they make, the better the technology, the better the technology, the cleaner and greener.

 

The other big thing is that motor racing is starting to get behind it-the 24 Hours of Le Mans features a special prize for the team who's car produces the least Co2 and uses the least fuel in the entire race, and Formula One are playing with electrical boost systems powered by recovered knietic energy, aka KERS.

[Marthos]

I also was thinking about the hydogen fuel cell and the program that James May did, it works, no doubt about that but as you say the infrastructure isnt there, I think it was also stated in that program that the costs were similar to what we're forking out now so if you added in the cost of getting that infrastructure in place then the price will rocket.

 

Electric cars will happen, I'm pretty sure about that but by the time 2050 comes around I'll probably only be in need of a hearse :happy:

 

Theres only one other power source open to us and thats nuclear :nuke: power, but I think we're still in our infancy with that at the moment, maybe our grandkids grandkids will get a chance to do something with it.

 

Thats if we (humans) survive, by 2050 there'll be an estimated 10.5 billion beings on an earth thats struggling to sustain us now, the future could be grim.

 

And on that cheery note, I'm off to make a pint pot of coffee.

[WrathOfDeadguy]

I love my Jeep and I'd never dream of replacing her, but one of the first things I do when I've got a place of my own is purchase a scooter for getting around locally. Gas prices going the way they are, it just doesn't make sense to drive around four seats plus cargo space and burn a gallon or two of gas just to run errands that won't require any of it.

 

I could see a huge rise in more fuel-efficient vehicles, such as scooters and smartcars and hybrids, but I do not think pure electrics or fuel cell vehicles or pure hydrogen power will catch on any time soon. Just like in any other business, automakers will not make the move into a new market until they have exhausted their existing dominant markets- they will test new markets, but not commit fully to them. Look at hybrids- they are proven now, and have been viable for over half a decade... but there is no major automaker which has shifted over to manufacture hybrid cars to the exclusion of standard cars. Nearly every major automaker (in the US anyway) has at least one hybrid model, but few have more than two in a fleet of sometimes dozens of models and variations.

 

Electric cars are an oddity in that they have been tried and dismissed- when the first mass-produced electric cars were introduced, they flopped horribly because battery technology had not yet advanced far enough to make them a practical alternative. They took all night to charge and drained in under an hour of driving. The sad part of that is that modern batteries are far, far better and people are only just starting to realize that electric cars could be practical if there were enough interest to fully develop them.

 

The fun fact I like to tack on to the electric car commentary is that trains have been pulled by electric motors since the early 1900s. Even diesel locomotives are actually driven by electric traction motors mounted on or between their axles- the large diesel engine under the hood is really just a portable generator. There is an unfortunate tendency for the general driving public to view electric motors as weaker than combustion engines, when in fact they are exactly as powerful as they are built to be, and high-torque electric drives that can pull thousands of times their own weight have been around for ages. It's the batteries that are still playing catch-up, plain and simple.

[Vindekarr]

Wow, thanks for that DeadGuy, I didnt know that.

 

I mean, I knew electric motors punched well above their weight, but I never realised that they powered trains. I also get what you're saying about market-you're exactly right, I doubt we'll see more than a handful of mainstream corps go past one or two hybrids per range for the time being.

 

In China however electric-only cars are actualy getting pretty common. Here in Australia we see Chinese cars pretty regularly-they occupy an important niche of rugged vehicles for those who cant afford the big Euro/American imports that occupy the upper class or the Japanese import cars of the middle niche.

 

Of those, many follow identicle planforms to petrol cars, but are solely electric, and do that formula pretty well.

 

As for myself, I dont think Im going to get rid of my crusty, brutish, stinky '88 Range Rover SWB V8 any time soon, it's a fuel economy nightmare, but the thundering V-8 roar(I'd swear that Rover V-8 is one of the best soundign engines EVER), instant torque, and incredible "fit-it-yourself-at-home" modularity means it's an incredibly practical car. And besides, I've got a BMW motorbike for 'round Melbourne cruising, and that uses little enough fuel.

Edited February 23, 2011 by Vindekarr

[JimboUK]

While battery technology has improved it hasn't come far enough to make mass use of electric cars viable. Batteries are still too big, too heavy, they don't old enough charge and still take too long to charge. Also a massive investment would need to be made in roadside charging points and we also would need to generate a lot more electricity. If we are going to invest large sums in an alternative then why not use Hydrogen instead? it still needs work but things are moving in the right direction.

 

@ Vindekarr Trains have been powered by electric for many years, 25,000 volt cables run above most lines here, some lines have a third rail that carries (less) power. It's not only the power that does the job, a steel wheel on a steel track generates very little friction so moving a large weight at a high speed is a lot easier, stopping is a different matter.

[Marthos]

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:

[Vindekarr]

The beauty of the rover V-8 was that anyone with a migwelder could have their way with it.

 

It was the Oblivion of car engines-not all that great to begin with but you could poke it and prod it and make it into whatever you wanted.

 

Mine for example has had some performanc emods, but also has a massive exhaust system that has the absolute minimum muffler legal-it sounds like Godzilla having a temper tantrum.

 

That and, it's got 12 inch wheeltravel and T/A tyres, so no matter how bad the weather is, I can still hit up the logging tracks.