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.

H3llR4iser

LordSutch wrote: »

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?

Big, bulky, heavy, over-insulated, pointless and still moved by a century-old reciprocating engine burning fossil fuels.

All it really takes is to look back 20, 25 and 30 years to see what has since become of cars: They grew heavier, taller, longer, bulkier and have been filled to the brim with pointless gizmos. Most current "small family" cars (think Ford Focus, Peugeot 309, Golf VII and the likes) will look like a Ford Transit if parked next to most executive sedans from the late 80s - early '90s. A BMW 318i E36 weighed roughly 1300 kg, a new 316i weighs 1485kg. It put up about 185kg - in the era of composites and light alloys.

Car manufacturers swear by progress, developing more fuel efficient engines, and then slam them on bulky barges that weigh as much as the moon and, in some cases, have the drag coefficient of a bendy bus driven sideways - because that's what customers want.

corkgsxr

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.

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.

cost. thats the problem. there are prob plenty ways you could do it now but the avarage family car cant cost 400000 euro

keithclancy

gbee wrote: »

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

AFAIK the only concepts that have been created are based on Thorium which in itself is pretty nasty if you spread it over a wide area.

Essentially you'd be driving a steam powered car.

I couldn't see such a complicated and potentially dangerous device being put into manually controlled vehicles zooming around the place at 120km/h when nuclear material is so tightly controlled.

F*ck sake your not even supposed to regas your Aircon yourself in most countries

When you put something out to the general public you have to assume that they'll do something to it you never envisaged. I've seen a guy stick an Aluminium Chimney on a homemade firepit, while most people would think this is 'ok' Aluminium melts fairly easily and when it comes into contact with water is explosive.

Queue light drizzle and a star trek like red shirt killing boom with bricks flying all over the place.

Boards Motors forum in 20 years talking about reactor modding for an extra 20bhp ... nahhh

PrzemoF

Electricity. Supplied from battery, wire-in-the-road or both.

keithclancy

PrzemoF wrote: »

Electricity. Supplied from battery, wire-in-the-road or both.

Thats here later this year in Brabant.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-10/30/smart-highway-glows-in-the-dark

Mr Benevolent

I'm guessing ultra efficient ceramic bladed mini jet turbines. Hot as hell, so power can be taken from heat generation or torque from shaft output.

But in reality it'll probably go very gradually towards battery power.

Solair

I don't think you're going to see a massive move towards electric cars in most countries until sometime beyond 2020 other than in a limited way in urban areas and probably increased use of things like plug-in hybrids.

The battery technology simply is not up to it. When (and I do think it's going to happen) someone comes up with a battery system that allows them to be as quickly refueled as a petrol/diesel car and has sufficient range, then we'll be into a whole new ballgame entirely.

I suspect the battery technology will be developed because there is huge R&D going into power storage systems from the electronics sector. The massive explosion in demand for power-hungry portable devices like tablets, smartphones, etc etc is forcing them to re-think the battery and I think a breakthrough like that's far more likely to come from the electronics engineers than automotive companies.

corkgsxr

Confab wrote: »

I'm guessing ultra efficient ceramic bladed mini jet turbines. Hot as hell, so power can be taken from heat generation or torque from shaft output.

But in reality it'll probably go very gradually towards battery power.

ya forgot that. you could be right there. but setup is very small battery with only 20 mile range. basicly a buffer. turbine powers the motors and charges the battery. constant revs.

can also run on pretty much anything

jag i think have a concept version

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaguar_C-X75

Bpmull

I'd imagine electric cars are the future as if Ireland converted 10 percent of its land to wind farms it would produce 80 kw per day per person of power currently each person uses 77kw of energy per day in ireland that's all in including transport heating and everything. It's amazing to think 10 percent of our land could provide all energy needs the thing is everything would have to be converted to electric including transport and heating etc. I'd say it will be at least 50 years before everything is converted to electrical. We don't even need nuclear power in Ireland anyway. Ireland is one of the few countries in the world that would have a low enough population density to be able to achieve enough energy just through wind power. Also when graphene technology is used in batteries it will make electric cars more practical. Ill say no more I don't want to bore people I think we will still have petrol and diesel car in 20 years time.

Joe 90

I remember, back about 1970 maybe a bit before, the Sunday Times asked a couple of car manufacturers what sort of car we would be driving at the turn of the 21st century. One of the manufacturers was Rover who plumped for a gas turbine car. The other I think was Triumph who plumped fro a small refined 6 cylinder car. Interesting that the more conservative one was much closer to the mark.
Thinking about it, I suspect that it may well have been some time before 1970 as I think that Rover and Triumph had had a forced marriage by that point and were well on the way to becoming British Leyland which begat Rover.

Rover did a lot of work on gas turbine cars in the '50s and '60s. They did in fact run at Le Mans. i read somewhere that the odd layout of the front suspension of the old Rover 2000 was to allow space for a future gas turbine powered version.

opinion guy

Methane

larchill

I've heard all this before. Back to the mid 70's oil crisis, we were all wondering what we'd be driving in 20 years. Its now almost 40 years later & we're still using the oul ICE! Much more efficient ones though. In 20 more years? they'll be even more efficient, & we'll have some other alternatives electric, hydrogen, ???

Joe 90

I'd be inclined to guess either ICE or electric battery. If fuel does become super expensive the cars themselves to become a lot smaller and lighter. Not cheaper because lighter costs. Think about size and weight. An original Issigonis Mini could take 4 people uncomfortably. So could an old two cylinder air cooled Fiat 500. A Costin Nathan Imp weighed about 400kgs. As someone said, these days people want something the size and weight of an old type transit to drive a coupe of people around. Power needed proportional to size and weight. Fuel, be it of the fossil or electric variety, consumption is proportional to power required.

kasper

google( ford nucleon) a concept car from ford usa in 1958

corkgsxr

Bpmull wrote: »

I'd imagine electric cars are the future as if Ireland converted 10 percent of its land to wind farms it would produce 80 kw per day per person of power currently each person uses 77kw of energy per day in ireland that's all in including transport heating and everything. It's amazing to think 10 percent of our land could provide all energy needs the thing is everything would have to be converted to electric including transport and heating etc. I'd say it will be at least 50 years before everything is converted to electrical. We don't even need nuclear power in Ireland anyway. Ireland is one of the few countries in the world that would have a low enough population density to be able to achieve enough energy just through wind power. Also when graphene technology is used in batteries it will make electric cars more practical. Ill say no more I don't want to bore people I think we will still have petrol and diesel car in 20 years time.

do ya know that for each kw of wind there has to be a plant making a kw as backup in case they dont produce. so wind energy is pointless its just a look how green we are while doing nothing. needs to be much more constant to be effective


and just batterys will never be a large portion of engines untill range is a real world 150-200 miles. and charge time is hour or so. and people have been saying its just round the corner for years. the advances we have that will give it are too expensive. it wont happen

Doc87

50 years time.....it will be Solar power all the way

corkgsxr

Doc87 wrote: »

50 years time.....it will be Solar power all the way

madder idea than batterys taking over

Sesshoumaru

corkgsxr wrote: »

do ya know that for each kw of wind there has to be a plant making a kw as backup in case they dont produce. so wind energy is pointless its just a look how green we are while doing nothing. needs to be much more constant to be effective


and just batterys will never be a large portion of engines untill range is a real world 150-200 miles. and charge time is hour or so. and people have been saying its just round the corner for years. the advances we have that will give it are too expensive. it wont happen

Automotive lithium battery packs are dropping relatively fast in cost

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/17/us-ev-battery-idUSBRE83G0EX20120417

http://www.caradvice.com.au/185266/lithium-ion-battery-price-dlithium-ion-battery-price-drop-to-make-hybrids-evs-cheaperrop-will-make-hybrids-evs-much-cheaper/

Bpmull

corkgsxr wrote: »

do ya know that for each kw of wind there has to be a plant making a kw as backup in case they dont produce. so wind energy is pointless its just a look how green we are while doing nothing. needs to be much more constant to be effective


and just batterys will never be a large portion of engines untill range is a real world 150-200 miles. and charge time is hour or so. and people have been saying its just round the corner for years. the advances we have that will give it are too expensive. it wont happen

I know Ireland could never completely rely on wind power I just thought it was an interesting fact. the graphene would seriously speed up the charging of the batterys as it is the most conductive material on the earth discovered so far. so much more conductive than lithium ion. they recently do an experiment and tested a standard lithium ion battery it took 200 minutes to charge. when they changed only the electrodes on the battery to graphene and left the rest of the battery lithium ion it charged to full in 10 minutes its amazing stuff. but unfortunatly we wont see graphene been used in batterys for at least 20 years.

corkgsxr

Sesshoumaru wrote: »

Automotive lithium battery packs are dropping relatively fast in cost

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/17/us-ev-battery-idUSBRE83G0EX20120417

http://www.caradvice.com.au/185266/lithium-ion-battery-price-dlithium-ion-battery-price-drop-to-make-hybrids-evs-cheaperrop-will-make-hybrids-evs-much-cheaper/

Both articles are full of should's and probably's and maybes. Absolutely nothing definite. So useless