If modern cars are full of 21st century technology, how come they're still powered by 19th century technology?

Answer 1

It is very very simple...........OIL. The internal combustion engine is what fuels the world economy. Its demand for crude oil from the middle east is what gives the Muslim world their financial ability to **** a snook at the developed west. It is the USA's love affair with the technology that keeps us enslaved to the mighty Oil Companies.They don't want better cleaner technology introduced, it would be disastrous for their profits. Their is no concern for the planet when profits are at stake. The Internal Combustion Engine is here to stay till the end of the world.

Answer 2

Because scientists in the 19th century had already discovered all the known forces that you can use to build an engine. They didn't know about nuclear forces, but (1) you can't use these to drive a motor directly, and (2) nobody wants them under the hood of a car. But they did have a pretty good understanding of pressure, and knew enough about electromagnetism to build working electric motors.

And inventors back then were able to put these to a lot of uses. Not only did they invent the four stroke gasoline engine, but they came up with most of its proposed replacements - electric motors and batteries, the Stirling engine, turbines, even a number of rotary engines. Most of the later designs have either been modified versions of a standard piston engine, or have taken the same principles and simply repackaged them (such as the Wankel).

Most of the advances since then have been in making engines to more precise tolerances, using more sophisticated materials, placing the engine under more reliable control mechanisms, and better understanding the airflow, stresses, and other details of what is going on inside the engine. All these have resulted in engines capable of performance that their original inventors would never have thought possible. The four stroke internal combustion piston engine has become sophisticated enought that it would take a very highly developed technology to replace it when it comes to power output, driving range, light weight, and practicality.

To completely sever connections to nineteenth century engine design would require coming up with a completely new operating principle for an engine. And so far, nobody's found one.

Answer 3

The basic working of a car's engine is 4 or 6 cannon balls being blasted down a cylinder and turning a bit of bent metal. This hasn't changed much over the past century. There has been some attempt to bring in the Wankel rotary engine but it never really caught on.

The way the fuel mixture gets into the engine and the way it's ignited have changed considerably over the past century. Fuel injection and electronic ignition come from the latter part of the 20th century and modern engine management systems are very much 21st century.

Answer 4

It's developed 19th century technology. You might as well ask why we still use ancient technology (ie wheel) as a means of harnessing the momentum.

Answer 5

if they were powered by 21st century technology the government wont be making any money

Answer 6

DeLorean were working on a different propulsion system involving the use of electrical power but then they went bust.
Didn't you watch any of the films?

Answer 7

they're not, they have many differnet things to the 19h century

Answer 8

the oils companies control it