Predictions for the future of cars.

[ohhey]

I'm starting this as a new thread so folks can add their own predictions.

Here is my prediction. Electric cars will dominate this century. They may be fuel cell or just some advanced battery but how ever it's done it will get done. It will also happen faster then the oil companies ever imagined and once the conversion to non gas cars starts it will be impossible to stop. Even if gas goes down to 50 cents a gallon people will still want electric cars as a social imperative or even fashion statement and operational costs will no longer be a major factor. In fact if electric cars are more expensive to own that will mean you will look "rich" driving one. The next big conspicuous display of wealth item.

There were many folks who bought SUVs, not because they needed or even wanted one, they bought them because it was the in thing or even a display of wealth. Many people hated their SUVs because it was difficult to park and they were denied access to some parking garages, even the owners thought they were ugly but it was the must have fashion accessory of the day.

My other prediction is that gas will not drop in price very much or for very long. The law of supply and demand does not apply to gas for some reason. And because we have let that happen it is no longer directly related to the price or availability of oil. Think about it.. when oil was $40 a barrel, gas was $2 and some change. Oil is now over $140 but gas is only $4. They are no longer linked by any fixed ratio, they can both freely float. In fact I predict that gas will continue to go up even after demand drops and even if oil drops back below $40 a barrel. They will make up some other excuse like potential conflict in the mideast, refining costs, storms, lower demand (yes.. you heard me right), or some new market force they haven't even thought of yet. All of this will make drivers even more angry and accelerate the adoption of electric cars. So on top of fashion, patriotism, and display of wealth, you can add spite to the long list of reasons why people will want electric cars.

My next prediction is that we will see a repeat of the failure to keep up with technology that western car brands suffered from in the 70s and 80s. Once again, we will get pimped out of the lion share of the electric car business by Asian countries to delivering too little, too late and because perception lags reality by 10 years American cars will be seen as inferior long after we catch up.

[TRD VVTi]

Originally Posted by ohhey

I'm starting this as a new thread so folks can add their own predictions.

Here is my prediction. Electric cars will dominate this century. They may be fuel cell or just some advanced battery but how ever it's done it will get done. It will also happen faster then the oil companies ever imagined and once the conversion to non gas cars starts it will be impossible to stop. Even if gas goes down to 50 cents a gallon people will still want electric cars as a social imperative or even fashion statement and operational costs will no longer be a major factor. In fact if electric cars are more expensive to own that will mean you will look "rich" driving one. The next big conspicuous display of wealth item.

There were many folks who bought SUVs, not because they needed or even wanted one, they bought them because it was the in thing or even a display of wealth. Many people hated their SUVs because it was difficult to park and they were denied access to some parking garages, even the owners thought they were ugly but it was the must have fashion accessory of the day.

My other prediction is that gas will not drop in price very much or for very long. The law of supply and demand does not apply to gas for some reason. And because we have let that happen it is no longer directly related to the price or availability of oil. Think about it.. when oil was $40 a barrel, gas was $2 and some change. Oil is now over $140 but gas is only $4. They are no longer linked by any fixed ratio, they can both freely float. In fact I predict that gas will continue to go up even after demand drops and even if oil drops back below $40 a barrel. They will make up some other excuse like potential conflict in the mideast, refining costs, storms, lower demand (yes.. you heard me right), or some new market force they haven't even thought of yet. All of this will make drivers even more angry and accelerate the adoption of electric cars. So on top of fashion, patriotism, and display of wealth, you can add spite to the long list of reasons why people will want electric cars.

My next prediction is that we will see a repeat of the failure to keep up with technology that western car brands suffered from in the 70s and 80s. Once again, we will get pimped out of the lion share of the electric car business by Asian countries to delivering too little, too late and because perception lags reality by 10 years American cars will be seen as inferior long after we catch up.

I predict that the text is too small and this should be in the General Discussion Forum.

[GT-R]

Hydrogen cars FTW.
BTW, text is too small.

[moky-tron]

Originally Posted by TRD VVTi

I predict that the text is too small and this should be in the General Discussion Forum.

+1

[white07cam]

Ot

[njerald]

Ho hum..........why don't you go to a palm reader or ask your 8 ball???????

[marc780]

I work with alternative fuel cars every day. I work for a large municipality and we are a test bed for many of these vehicles. Here is what i've seen and my opinion:

1. Pure electric cars, as opposed to hybrids, are not going to take over anytime soon. This is due to flaws in existing battery technology. Current batteries are either , too heavy, too bulky, too dangerous, too expensive, lack range and lose power too fast, or all of the above. (i once had to price batteries for an all-electric ford pickup that had worn its batteries out in less than 30,000 miles. the batteries cost $18,000.) Radically new battery technology is required before pure electric cars become really economical or desirable to the average driver.

2. Hydrogen is probably the real future automotive fuel. Hydrogen is almost perfect as it is a naturally occuring substance, burns very clean and does not pollute the air. Toyota and Honda among others, are already making them for sale to fleets. The major problem with hydrogen fuel is the cost and difficulty of synthesising the hydrogen (which can be done from ocean water among other things, using an osmosis method). But again, radical technology and billions of dollars in retooling the automotive industry has to occur before we are all zipping around in hydrogen powered cars.

I think its ironic that we could probably already have perfected new automotive technology like you are discussing, if we had invested in it even half of what we have spent on waging war for oil in Iraq so far.

[njerald]

Another load of Liberal crap..........

[TRD VVTi]

Originally Posted by njerald

Another load of Liberal crap..........

+1

I didn't expect any less.

[buno]

Originally Posted by TRD VVTi

+1

I didn't expect any less.

++1



I predict that I will keep driving my other vehicle, a truck, to offset and small carbon foot print you and others might be concerned about. In short, I'll burn the gas up that others don't use.

[thoots]

Well, a few things....

First of all, oil has been going down over the past few days -- perhaps that direction will gather as much steam as the upward direction has over the past few months.

Yes, it's very true that, while the price at the pump has skyrocketed, it hasn't even BEGUN to keep up with the price of crude oil. If it had, we'd probably be double or triple where we are now.

Nothing here is "liberal crap." Damn Republicans! Just what, pray tell, do YOU liberal-haters think is going to happen? We just manage along as prices go over 10 bucks per gallon, then 15 bucks per gallon, then 20 bucks per gallon, and everyone absorbs that with no problems whatsoever? Or, do you think we'll just slide back down to 2 bucks per gallon, and there'll be no further drama for the rest of our lives (or your childrens' lives)?

It's true that there really is no "shortage" of oil, for now -- this whole insanity has been inflicted upon us by trading speculation. Still, we're definitely headed towards a time when we won't be able to get the cheapest oil anymore, or the oil that lies where nobody cares where we drill for it. And, while the mantra has always been "Then, we'll just have to start getting the oil that costs more to process," but we have just seen an over-riding dynamic -- as the price of fuel goes up, EVERYTHING goes up along with it -- making the "expensive oil" that much more expensive to process in the end.

I am REALLY unclear about "Well, just how much oil do we have laying around in the US that we COULD drill for, but can't or won't for some reason?" -- it seems utterly impossible to find a clear picture of that. The bottom line appears to remain that a huge amount of the oil that the anti-liberals apparently expect us to continue to rely upon for the rest of this century is in the hands of unstable and/or "enemy" countries, who can screw our entire population any time they damn well please. In the end, I am "for" any kind of energy -- whether it be oil, nuclear, or renewable -- that we can produce in THIS country, and keep our destiny out of the hands we've essentially become "indebted" to.

I'm no fan of hydrogen -- our current technology requires nearly the same amount of energy to produce the stuff as it provides. I've heard talk about using methanol -- not ethanol -- to accomplish much what has been envisioned in regards to hydrogen, but with far less costly production methods. Ethanol has turned out to be an awful turkey -- because of government corn subsidies, we're using corn to produce it, which not only appears to be one of the most INEFFICIENT crops to use, but also takes that crop out of our food chain, not only for our tables, but for feed for our animals. And, again, it takes nearly as much energy to make it as it provides, and we've generally been BURNING COAL to get that energy. Utterly, utterly, utterly STUPID!!

In the end, I certainly get the impression that the "liberal crap" viewpoint comes from folks who utterly haven't begun to comprehend how this country's oil usage has increased exponentially over the past few decades, and how the world's oil usage has increased much, much more than ours has. We're really running as fast as we can toward an abyss, unless we find SOME kind of energy to fuel our vehicles, other than the oil we import from other countries. My hope is that we either wake up and produce enough oil in this country to meet our needs, or, if that's just not possible, I'd look towards new technology to produce hydrogen efficiently, or to use methanol for the same capacity, instead. It does appear that the "fuel cell," which powers essentially an electric vehicle, is the most reasonable way to go, unless we make MASSIVE improvements in battery technology.

[moky-tron]

can we have this moved to the off-topic or general discussion boards?

[Qslim]

Originally Posted by marc780

2. Hydrogen is probably the real future automotive fuel. Hydrogen is almost perfect as it is a naturally occuring substance, burns very clean and does not pollute the air. Toyota and Honda among others, are already making them for sale to fleets. The major problem with hydrogen fuel is the cost and difficulty of synthesising the hydrogen (which can be done from ocean water among other things, using an osmosis method). But again, radical technology and billions of dollars in retooling the automotive industry has to occur before we are all zipping around in hydrogen powered cars.

Hydrogen is the least energy dense fuel on Earth. And as far as "occuring naturally", nowhere on this planet does hydrogen just exist for us to use. At room temp, hydrogen takes up 3k times the space a gasoline, so to get any usable amount of energy out of it it has to be compressed a whole bunch (10k psi or so) or liquefied. Doing so can take up to 40% of the energy contained in the hydrogen in the first place. And hydrogen is made from water through electrolysis, not "osmosis", and most of the electricity used for that process comes from fossil fuel plants operating at 30% efficiency.
The only way that hydrogen production will ever make sense is if we can figure out a way to produce it from a renewable energy source, because no matter how you look at it, hydrogen production is an energy sink. Until we figure out how to produce it through fusion or some other fancy means, build fuel cells that last a decent amount of time for under a million bucks, and develop economical light-weight storage and transport solutions, the whole hydrogen infrastructure is a long way off.

Besides, I'm positive that we'll all be getting around like this before too long:

[ScrooYoo]

lol @ "liberal crap".... unless you are one of the wealthiest Americans you would be out of your mind to be a conservative/republican as they don't serve anyone's interests but the ultra wealthy. judging by the fact that we all drive toyotas here my guess is that not that many of us are CEO's of Haliburton or Exxon.

forget about the environment, who wouldn't want a car that you wouldn't have to spend a penny of gas on?

whatever..... to each their own.