It's the end of the automobile as we know it....

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AcuraTech

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Lets face it, everybody cruising around in some sort of (electric, hybrid, natural gas, hydrogen, etc) personal mode of transportation, it’s not going to happen. It’s a pipe dream. The days of happy motoring are (almost) over.

Sure, it’s not going to happen tomorrow, next month, next year, or maybe even in 10 years. But to imagine that we’ll all be happily motoring along in 20+ years just as we are now, it’s facetious.

There is absolutely nothing in the works that can replace our addiction to petroleum. Even if everybody switched to electric cars tomorrow, how would we power the massive amounts of new power plants that would be necessary to achieve that?

"We’re blowing a lot of green smoke up our ***" - even if we somehow came up with the perfect "green" car, who is going to pay to build the infrastructure needed to fuel these cars?

On top of that, for vehicles to be able to roam about, you need a road network that is in 100% shape. Without any maintenance, roads and highways turn into a pothole filled heap within a few years. Increasingly, every level of government has been "broke as a joke", and critical infrastructure maintenance and upgrades have been sorely lacking. Re-paving even a few miles of urban freeway often costs $10 million or more.

The automobile is dead....
 
We need policies that lead to denser development and lessen the need for cars. I believe we will look back someday and say "how primitive and silly society was when we thought we needed 19 lanes of traffic on a single freeway in Houston and everyone traveliing alone in a 4000 lb car."
 
We'll be zipping around on buses and bicycles. The personal auto will be a luxury reserved for the folks to take weekend and vacation trips with.

$2.70 gas this summer, according to the folks who predict. Enjoy it while you can...
 
... and I'm sure the same predictions and dooms day theories were talked about during the 70's oil crisis as well, and yet here we are driving more than ever and consuming more oil than ever, and China is buying more cars than car makers ever dreamed of.

The truth is, we will continue to drive and use oil, maybe less in NA since we're broke, but there are other countries that will pick up the slack. And we will continue doing this until oil truly runs out or until oil companies realize that oil supply is running out and they will look for alternatives to stay in business.
 
The infastructure needs to be in place before any of these alternative fuels can be implemented in the real world. Government subsidies only can prop up a false sense function.
 
Originally Posted By: willix
The infastructure needs to be in place before any of these alternative fuels can be implemented in the real world. Government subsidies only can prop up a false sense function.


+1
 
Oil will never totally run out, it will just get more environmentally damaging and expensive to extract, like the tar sands in Alberta for example. Then it will not be cost effective to just burn it at 20% efficiency in a car.

I think the days of the car being only 3000+ lbs box of metal run strictly on internal combustion are almost over. What will replace it? I think electric and fossil fuel/ethanol/biodiesel hybrids will tide us over for a while until either fuel cells get better or solar panels gain efficiency.
Also cars could be so much more aerodynamic than they are now, just maximizing the existing technology could reduce fuel use by half. This guy http://www.aerocivic.com/ has cobbed together an aerobody for a lean burn civic and is getting great mileage. Imagine what a real R&D department at a major automaker could come up with if the marketing and styling folks were told to take a long walk off a short pier... 80 mpg with 4 people is not technically difficult to do, its hard to sell that car until gas goes up...
 
Your faith in the human ability to adapt is ridiculously low.

We will find solutions. We have for millions of years. We invented the car, we can invent it again if need be.

The sky won't fall, I promise.
 
It will happen. When gasoline reaches $7 to $9 per gallon in today's prices, the technology will shift. We're already working on these alternate technologies with a trickle of research money. Not all of them are widely covered by the media. Once we get to those prices, and the prognosis is that the gasoline prices will stay up there, then you'll start seeing a huge flow of development dollars to refine these alternate technologies.
 
Originally Posted By: AcuraTech
There is absolutely nothing in the works that can replace our addiction to petroleum. Even if everybody switched to electric cars tomorrow, how would we power the massive amounts of new power plants that would be necessary to achieve that?

Nuclear. Eventually, people will stop being scared of it, and some 50 years down the line we will have more electricity than we know what to do with.


Originally Posted By: AcuraTech
even if we somehow came up with the perfect "green" car, who is going to pay to build the infrastructure needed to fuel these cars?

If it does happen, it's not going to happen overnight. It'll happen gradually. Eventually the price will come down and we will pay for it with whatever money we would have used to buy what it's replacing.


Originally Posted By: AcuraTech
On top of that, for vehicles to be able to roam about, you need a road network that is in 100% shape. Without any maintenance, roads and highways turn into a pothole filled heap within a few years. Increasingly, every level of government has been "broke as a joke", and critical infrastructure maintenance and upgrades have been sorely lacking. Re-paving even a few miles of urban freeway often costs $10 million or more.

Just think what would happen if we all switched to lighter vehicles that didn't put as much stress on the roads.
wink.gif
 
Originally Posted By: AcuraTech
Lets face it, everybody cruising around in some sort of (electric, hybrid, natural gas, hydrogen, etc) personal mode of transportation, it’s not going to happen. It’s a pipe dream. The days of happy motoring are (almost) over.

Sure, it’s not going to happen tomorrow, next month, next year, or maybe even in 10 years. But to imagine that we’ll all be happily motoring along in 20+ years just as we are now, it’s facetious.

There is absolutely nothing in the works that can replace our addiction to petroleum. Even if everybody switched to electric cars tomorrow, how would we power the massive amounts of new power plants that would be necessary to achieve that?

"We’re blowing a lot of green smoke up our ***" - even if we somehow came up with the perfect "green" car, who is going to pay to build the infrastructure needed to fuel these cars?

On top of that, for vehicles to be able to roam about, you need a road network that is in 100% shape. Without any maintenance, roads and highways turn into a pothole filled heap within a few years. Increasingly, every level of government has been "broke as a joke", and critical infrastructure maintenance and upgrades have been sorely lacking. Re-paving even a few miles of urban freeway often costs $10 million or more.

The automobile is dead....


I remember hearing the same commentary during the 1970's fuel crisis-almost verbatim. It wasn't true then, and it isn't true now.
 
Originally Posted By: willix
The infastructure needs to be in place before any of these alternative fuels can be implemented in the real world. Government subsidies only can prop up a false sense function.


Well, it's obvious that oil is priced too cheap by the market. It's easy enough to see if you weigh the costs of (truly) producing any alternative. Subsidy or taxation (same thing) is the only way to level the playing field for sensible alternative development.

That's if you desire to avoid the experience of a new tragedy of the commons. It's a funny thing about natural resources, they don't have to conform to some assumed slope of decreasing availability. They can be @ 100% production up until the tipping point where they take themselves out of the supply and demand scenario. All the demand in the world can't produce something there is no supply of. There's also the assumption that there are alternatives that will identically replace the depleted/no longer viable method.

So you can plan for the inevitable and soak up the cost curve in advance of the event, or you can get caught flat footed and suffer the dysfunction.

People really think that there's some entitlement to "life as we know it" and keep struggling to enable it.


The reciprocating internal combustion engine has been in development for over 100 years. About all that's occurred is continued refinement of it. It hasn't been made obsolete by "something else".
 
Originally Posted By: willix
The infastructure needs to be in place before any of these alternative fuels can be implemented in the real world. Government subsidies only can prop up a false sense function.


I've had similar thoughts. Does anyone know what the early history of gas stations were? When automobiles were a rare luxury, where were the owner's getting fuel? Were there different fuels at the time and how were they standardized? How were road networks funded?
 
Originally Posted By: kb01

I've had similar thoughts. Does anyone know what the early history of gas stations were? When automobiles were a rare luxury, where were the owner's getting fuel? Were there different fuels at the time and how were they standardized? How were road networks funded?


You'd buy it in buckets(!) from a hardware store. Was refinery waste from kerosene for lamps. (kerosene being synthetic whale oil which the lamps were initially designed for.)

Liquid fuel is nice for its portability and density. Shamefully I heat my house with #2 diesel/heating oil; wish I could get piped gas or another alternative*. At $7/gal or so electric would make sense. Or if we found some electricity that isn't 16c/KwH, "too cheap to meter", we could save that #2.

*do have a woodstove and run a few cord thru it. While delivered in a truck, it doesn't cross the planet in a tanker.
 
Originally Posted By: kb01
I've had similar thoughts. Does anyone know what the early history of gas stations were? When automobiles were a rare luxury, where were the owner's getting fuel? Were there different fuels at the time and how were they standardized? How were road networks funded?


The Model-A and Model-T were the first Flex-Fuel vehicles. In town you could buy gas. Out in the country or travelling, every farm had a Still. Simply adjust the mixture and advance the spark (all done on the dash-area) - No problem.

The dinosaurs had their time, now they're gone. The big oil-tycoons have certainly had their time.........


Rob
 
Originally Posted By: mechtech2
Originally Posted By: rshaw125
I don't agree at all. look at the Honda Clarity. hydrogen powered.and you can produce your fuel at home from solar power. No more trips to the gas station. Zero emissions.


http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/how-fcx-works.aspx


Lots of places don't get enough sun to make this remotely feasible. Do you want your own or an emergency vehicle powered by luck?



Nonsense. If you don't have enough sun use wind to generate your hydrogen. The home re-fueling station makes the hydrogen gradually all day long. So it's ready for re-fueling long before you need it.
 
rshaw125, seeing as you declare "nonsense", can you please educate us all on how many square metres of roof space would be required to take your hydrogen vehicle on a 100km commute ?

Even at current best practice levels of solar to electricity/wind to electricity/electricity to hydrogen, and then fuel cell efficiency.

Just so the unwashed masses know how silly that they are when they say that it's impossible to fuel your vehicle from home.
 
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