When do you think truly clean automobiles will be available and prevalent?

Question

This includes plug-in electric cars, hybrids which use a turbine to generate electricity only, ethanol cars running on fermented ethanol (current ethanol requires more energy to produce than it provides when burned), or any other vehicles with zero or near zero emissions. When do you think we will break the 100MPG barrier with a consumer vehicle under real-world conditions? What do you think the first high-efficiency technique to hit the market will be?

When I say "clean" I mean near-zero emissions. Internal combustion engines are inefficient, so even running your electric car on a fossil-fuel generated electricity is cleaner than using an IC engine.

By "truly clean" I mean in contrast to current hybrids which do not increase mileage by a significant ammount in most cases. Partly at fault is the lack of time the IC engine is shut off.

So when will our vehicles become as clean as we can realistically get them? When do we reach the point where reducing a car's carbon footprint requires changes in America's infrastructure, distribution methods, and power generation?

Answer 1

There is hope, and maybe you'll have your answer soon. The Tesla all electric sports car was just introduced:

http://www.teslamotors.com

This car performs like a Ferrari: 130 mph, 0-60 in 4 seconds, and it can go 250 miles on one charge. And it uses not one drop of gasoline. Sadly it is also very expensive. But Tesla wants to use the income from this car to develop an affordable and practical all-electric family car.

If you do not choose to wait, you can buy a very affordable electric car from people who convert gas cars to electric. There aren't many of them, and the technology is older (you'll only get a 50-mile range) but they are out there.

I bought an old electric car for $2000, plus another $4000 to fix it up. Here it is:

http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/775

Look around this site, you'll see lots of EV's, even some for sale. I drive mine to work, shopping, to visit friends, and it is great. And I never visit gas stations.

Answer 2

In reality there is no such thing as a "truly clean automobile" or any other kind of vehicle.

All vehicles have to be manufactured. The manufacturing process is energy intensive in that the process has a high "CO2" factor to the environment.

100% Electric cars may be pluged in but the electricity is produced by some sort of power plant. If it is a "green source" of power wind, solar, wave action then the "CO2" factor is much lower BUT it is still adding to the environment un-needed CO2

Now the good news is that there is some very advanced battery technology research going on that is one step beyond the best lithium system out there in current us. This new system is very close to achieving that "100mpg" goal when looking at the relative all electric to gas/ethanol/cng/lpg power production.

Side note: If you have not seen the movie "An Inconvient Truth" you need to go see it if you are in any way interested in Global Warming. Take someone with you too.

Hope this helped.

Answer 3

If you are talking about a zero pollution vehicle, it will not happen without a breakthrough in solar panel and battery storage technology. The sun is the only pollution free energy source in our world. Everything else is a tradeoff. Even hydrogen powered cars which produce water as a byproduct, still need electricity to produce the hydrogen. That electricity comes from either fossil fuel or nuclear fuel, both of which produce a waste byproduct.

The number one rule in engineering....Nothing is for free..

Answer 4

some are available currently in Brazil. Takes long time for them to be available in large quantities in USA . 100 MPG may be never.