What type of propulsion will power our cars in twenty years time?

LordSutch

Surely by 2033 the petrol engine will be pushing up the daisies and talked about in fond terms
in the same way some old folk reminisce about the steam trains of their youth )

So what do you think will replace the internal combustion engine in twenty years time?
might Hybrid be king? or might some form of advanced Battery power taken over? what about Hydrogen cell power?
Compressed Air powered engines? compressed gas? a new form of steam engine? without the coal obviously . . . .



Can't see the petrol engine still going in twenty years time, can you?

Chuck Stone

I don't think the internal combustion engine will be replaced within 20 years. It will just get more efficient and there'll be more lighter and smaller cars and more car sharing schemes.

Eric Cartman

Still petrol / diesel / biodiesel

possibly CNG or hydrogen.

I dont think electric cars will ever be a majority, and I dont think ill ever own one either way, as long as I can afford to pump hippy repelling refined crude into something , I will.

and if cars ever look like that picture above , ill be driving 'vintage' cars only.


this is as good as it gets as far as im concerned

Savage Tyrant

Flux Capacitor's are the way forward..... But they'll need 1.21 JIGAWATTS

JJJJNR

20 years we'll be all driving electric cars, powered by our houses..

Sleepy

My money says that the major oil companies already have something up their sleeves. Some form of bio-fuel that will run in standard petrol/diesel engines that they're keeping under lock and key until peak oil hits.

LordSutch

LordSutch wrote: »

...........

So what do you think will replace the internal combustion engine in twenty years time?
might Hybrid be king?...............

Voodoomelon

Way I see it, even if an alternative to the combustion engine was perfected right now, this very moment, you still have to give people 10-15 years to change over.

So in 20 years the vast majority of cars will certainly still be petrol/diesel/biofuel, maybe even double that in some shape or form.

kirving

As said above, the changeover will take a long time, I'd say up to 50 years.

The thing with an ICE is that fuel has a limited amount of energy to be extraced from it. Much of that is wasted as heat these days, but capturing that heat energy is very difficult. Even if all of the energy from the fuel was used, efficiency would only double, or maybe triple , which is still no match in cost terms to electricity.

Batteries have a long way to go yet, but supercapacitors are the way forward. Rather than electricity being stored in the from of chemical energy as it is in a battery, supercapicitors rely on physics alone, and can be charged in minutes. Once supercapacitorss become mainstream, the end of the ICE will begin. Mass producing carbon nanotubes is the next problem to be solved, before that can happen though.

bazz26

This:




Oh wait, that was 20 years ago...

Cungi

Hydrogen.

LordSutch

RoverJames wrote: »

Yes, I am aware that current hybrid engines are partially internal combustion, but what I am sugesting is that Hybrids might become the norm in the future (with 100% internal combustion engined cars becoming a thing of the past)? Currently Hybrids only account for a vey small proportion of vehicles on our roads . . .

Mr Simpson

If they sort out the problems with Hydrogen, I can see it being a big thing in the future

dgt

Chips, burgers and cola






Using my 2 legs as propulsion....

keithclancy

Pedal Power and more electric public transport run from Nuclear and renewables

Cookie_Monster

Algae derived biofuels

jimmycrackcorm

I'll go for broke and suggest nuclear powered.

JohnBoy26

I dont care what powers them as long as it has no dpf or dmf il be happy.

Andrewf20

I reckon petrol and diesel with still be the main forces in 20 years time. I think cars will get lighter to a point, with better aerodymanics and more efficient engines, so basically a continuation of what we see today. I reckon in 50 years time perhaps, things will be much much different, if I was to bet.

seanmacc

Possibly Flow batterys.

http://poweringnow.com/news/electric-vehicle-applications-flow-batteries

Basically you'll stillbe going to a fuel station to fill up on a liquid but you'll also be emptying out your old battery liquid to be recharged. I believe Dundalk IT are pioneering some of this technology.

One of the obsticles could be that you could recharge your battery liquid at home. Big oil might not like that.

langdang

keithclancy wrote: »

Pedal Power and more electric public transport run from Nuclear and renewables

Realistically, yes, I think this is most likely - owning and running a car will just become so prohibitively expensive for average joe that 2/3 car families near urban areas will become 1 car families, and every car journey will have to be planned and justified by those unfortunate enough to be still running older cars, or living outside public transport areas.
There will be more electric cars, but any incentive/offers to buy them will have been removed and anyone with the "spare cash" to buy one will be hammered as hard as someone currently buying a gas guzzler.

There's my little pre 9am dose of dystopia for ye... enjoy!

corkgsxr

Unless they make some major advance in electric it'll still be the minority. And I dont think they will.

Petrols were ignored for a while as diesel was shooting forward. Now diesel engines have gotten pretty close to the point where not much more can be done.

The advance of pertol has started again. Engines will get smaller and the standard will be a turbo engine.
Already some of the small turbo petrols can get 60 mpg

Hydrogen will come on stream.


I seem to remember vw saying they wont make the golf/passat hybrid as a weight loss of 100kg would give the same result with no complications of hybrids

NIMAN

Petrol and diesel.

muckwarrior

LordSutch wrote: »

Can't see the petrol engine still going in twenty years time, can you?

Yes.

gbee

We could already be running nuclear engines that would not need refuelling for twenty years and in twenty years time we should have perfected the safe sealed fast breeder mini reactor that would or could run for hundreds of years.

Take a look at the nuclear power plants in the US Aircraft Fleet from their conception to the The new Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers with their A1B reactor plant that is a smaller, more efficient design that provides approximately three times the electrical power of the Nimitz-class A4W reactor plant.

On that note we could also be running many things on free energy engines, no batteries ever, and we can have radiation free miniature power from particles for small items like wrist watches and mobile phones.

We are awash with energy TBH.

langdang

corkgsxr wrote: »

I seem to remember vw saying they wont make the golf/passat hybrid as a weight loss of 100kg would give the same result with no complications of hybrids

That sounds more like Mazda philosophy - doesn't sound like a VAG statement at all. Maybe the VAG engineering department said that, but what the bean counters heard was "if we make a complicated hybrid, perhaps adding an electric motor to the turbo/supercharged 1.4, we can bend customers over for servicing and parts"

gbee

langdang wrote: »

perhaps adding an electric motor to the turbo/supercharged 1.4, we can bend customers over for servicing and parts"

Which is a very good point. It leads to the possibility that we won't own our own transport in the near future, merely booking a vehicle for the trip, be that an SUV for the family or off road, a van for a bit of work etc, then the vehicle drives itself to my location and thus.

keithclancy

gbee wrote: »

We could already be running nuclear engines that would not need refuelling for twenty years and in twenty years time we should have perfected the safe sealed fast breeder mini reactor that would or could run for hundreds of years.

It wouldn't be in anyones financial interests to create something like that unfortunately.

Would bring a whole new meaning to car bombs also.

gbee

keithclancy wrote: »

Would bring a whole new meaning to car bombs also.

Have you not leaned anything from Fukshima? You almost cannot make a nuclear reactor explode, so you can't turn it into a car bomb. However, you demonstrate the fear and ignorance that perhaps represents the majority of the public and certainly the legislating bodies in banning such devices ~ but that's another story.

keithclancy

gbee wrote: »

Have you not leaned anything from Fukshima? You almost cannot make a nuclear reactor explode, so you can't turn it into a car bomb. However, you demonstrate the fear and ignorance that perhaps represents the majority of the public and certainly the legislating bodies in banning just devices ~ but that's another story.

You stick a bomb on the reactor and spread the nuclear material everywhere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_bomb

gbee

keithclancy wrote: »

You stick a bomb on the reactor and spread the nuclear material everywhere.

Not right. What you are referring to is essentially spent nuclear fuel already out of the reactor.