khuon

This reminds me of the joke on SNL I once heard when Jimmy Fallon reports in Weekend Update about how they've managed to create an engine which ran on peanut oil. The punchline was that given the price of peanut oil per gallon, he's waiting for a cheaper solution that involves a car with an engine that ran on Faberge Eggs and bald eagle heads. I think the point is that for general acceptance to occur, not only does the technology have to satisfy all the environmental and technical/performance concerns but it also has to be economically feasable for the majority. This is a very tricky thing to get right. Gasoline engines for the most part are not so great at the former but because of the energy density of gasoline does satisfy the latter quite well. Although things are starting to get sketchy on the economics side nowadays.

Allen H

Same argument could be made for nearly every high-tech item - "just wait, it'll be better and cheaper in the future". But if everyone actually followed that advice, there'd be no market, no more R&D invested, and the "better cheaper version" couldn't ever happen.

It seems to me if you can go from a typical 20 mpg car to a 40+ mpg hybrid, you're doing yourself AND the environment a favor - so I would NOT try to be a "market timer" in getting a hybrid car - get it when you need it, not wait until someone says "this is the right time to buy".

K6-III

There is a GREAT alterative to petroleum-powered cars in the works, and it is not fuel cells.

Much better, from French auto maker MDI, powered by compressed air. Check it out at www.theaircar.com

The car should go on sale later this year for about $12k with an air compressor, and it will only cost $1.20 to recharge the tank for another 200km.

Makes much more sense from an engineering standpoint than fuel cells, is more efficient, and has great potential for scaling. The main limitation will be the rather heavy fuel tanks required to withstand the necessary pressures.

K6-III

BTW, MDI is also working on hybrid vehicles with CAT engines for low speed use and petrol engines for higher speeds. This is designed to significantly boost range, as range is some 4x better at city speeds than highway speeds for CAT engines.

shokhead

I'll get a hybrid as soon as they get around 0-60 under 7 seconds.

khuon

I'm surprised they can't. If hybrid Humvees can do 0-50 in 7 seconds (and that's with nearly eight year old technology), I imagine something like a hybrid Civic with modern hybrid technology can easily be engineered to pull off an under 7 second time for 0-60. The one thing I don't like about the current hybrid systems is that they haven't taken things far enough. I truly believe that the future drive system for cars should be independent electric motors and that the drivetrain and power system should be mechanically decoupled. Doing so would lead to a huge performance gain and an increase in flexibility. This is actually the type of system that is used in the hybrid Humvee and is one of the reasons why it can achieve much better relative performance. Current consumer hybrid vehicles seem to only address the engine and not the overly taxing and ineffecient mechanical drivetrain. Independent electric drive motors can result in a much lighter system and more effecient power transmission from the engine to the drive components.

cycletourist

I've been looking at these cars for a while. Two things:

1) they probably won't pass US crash test standard which means they will probably never be sold here.
2) I think they are overestimating the mileage figures. Maybe on flat ground they will run 200k but where I live it would probably run less than 100k (60 miles).

darksky

Hey cycletourist! Thanks for the links in your signature. I bookmarked them all.

shokhead

Most cars do poorly in crash tests.

froze

It sure does read my post numbers 49 and 52 on this thread.