How long do you give hybrids? Obviously we are finally at a point where we are beginning to break away from the internal combustion engine(as the only option) and the future is very exciting. Fuel cell, hydrogen, NG or whatever?? IMO the hybrid is probably a stop gap. In a few years will my HCH-II be obsolete and worth less than say a regular model? Any thoughts? What's Honda have to say about it?

Fuel cells / hydrogen are the same thing, AFAIK. I think they are a major hoax being pulled on a gullible public. Hydrogen fuel cells are at least ten years away as a viable option, and it's a misleading idea because to get the hydrogen to power a vehicle you have to use electricity to separate the hydrogen from water. So the hydrogen isn't really a fuel, it's an energy storage medium like a battery. Building a national hydrogen delivery insfrastruture is a crazy pipe dream. I think Detroit and the oil companies and some politicians support it, in words alone, because they know it's never going to happen. They would rather support something that is far off in the future and may never happen because it buys time for their gasoline powered technology.

Natural gas is a good fuel because it's clean burning. But it doesn't solve any fundamental problems. It still produces CO2. And if it gets widely adopted we will be just as short on natural gas as we are on oil. The two fossil fuels - oil, gas, and you can add coal to the equation, are interchangeable in many applications. They all contribute to global warming and are part of the problem, not the solution.

I think hybrids will become more prevalent because conservation is a key path out of our environmental and economic issues. If every new car consumed 1/3 less gas because it's a hybrid, regardless of size and power, it would be a significant step in the right direction. It's a relatively easy solution. The technology exists. All it take is a recognition that high fuel prices are here to stay, and it will happen.

The next step beyond that, IMO, is plug-in hybrids. With improved batteries a car will be able to travel up to 30 miles on batteries alone. If you plug it in overnight and travel less than 30 miles per day, you may never need to buy gasoline. If you don't plug it in, or travel farther, it runs like our existing hybrids.

This still doesn't solve the problem of where to get all the extra electricity. I think there is only one good answer - photovoltaic, i.e. electricity generated from solar radiation using solar cells. They exist now. They are still a bit too expensive. Production costs are coming down fast, to where in a few years it will be practical for every home owner, every industrial building, to install solar collectors and fill much of their energy needs themselves.

2006 HCH Alabaster Silver w/Navi
2003 Honda Accord LX

I guess you could be right- sometimes technology leaps forward and all of a sudden everyone is throwing out VCRs and there are nothing but DVDs at Blockbuster. But I think that's an exception- a lot of the time, change is very slow, especially when it comes to transportation. I mean, heck, how long after the invention of the car did we get around to building an interstate highway system? How long before people stopped buying hay by the ton and put horses out to pasture?

It takes time, and given the infrastructure that we have set up to support the present system, and the huge number of people who are heavily invested in resisting change (the oil industry, car makers, mechanics, auto factories, gas stations, -people across the world who only know how to deal with existing technology and/or wouldn't benefit from making a switch) a bigger change than the hybrid, which fits in really well with existing infrastructure and support mechanisms, might take a surprisingly long time. Items that are suited for transitional steps can sometimes stick around for decades if the transition is long enough (take affirmative action, although the analogy isn't great).

Do I think we're going to keep driving ICEs forever? No. There isn't enough gas. If we get really efficient at it, really quickly, then it could last a good long while, I suppose, and then we'd probably be relying heavily on hybrids by then. But people have been predicting that we're about to run out of oil (in 15 or 20 years) for more than 35 years, which shows that these things are often slower than we expect.

So my thought is this: I'm probably going to drive my hybrid into the ground. And when I'm done with it, I think there will be more hybrids on the roads than there are now.

I agree with Elan, hydrogen is storage not primary energy period.

I think the next gen hybrids will be flex fuel or diesel. The may be electric battery or might use caps or even be compressed air or gyro. I think some form of hybrid has a long and bright future. That hybrid will have a renewable primary source of energy like ethanol or biodiesel and an energy storage componant like our current batteries.

Excellent answers. How about combing NG with batteries? At any rate it looks like a hybrid is the answer for a while.

Given the medium, infrastructure, acceptance, and other factors, most likely powerful next gen EV vehicles would be the next step, along with alternatives like E85 or biodiesels, with Plug-in hybrids being another popular option.

I'm sorry to say, it isn't likely to ever be Hydrogen within the 50 years at least, if ever. As it's been put before, it's like being a member of the Apollo 11 design crew and suggesting they use the warp drive to get to the moon. At this point, there's nothing to support system or ease of manufacturing in place. Heck, trial zones don't have hydrogen stations because hydrogen storage stations are prohibited in most urban areas, hydrogen vehicle testing requires fueling at manufacturer testing grounds and their like. Also, Fuel Cells and hydrogen are the same.

If you recall your history, Electric Vehicles were popular, as were natural gas, ethonol, gasoline, along with steam 100 years ago. Edsel Ford even suggested combination vehicles, as Henry Ford promoted Ethonol. In the end, gasoline won. Seems not much has changed in a century.

Plug-In Hybrids, along with a car company truly being behind a pure EV vehicle could go a long way, even if that's not the ultimate solution, being more than a stop gap.

In other words, hanging onto the hybrid is a good idea. I certainly will be.

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For some reason I don't see the hydrogen stuff coming until there is no oil to run our cars. Even then the government is figuring out a way to tax this stuff. I recently watch a movie called "An Inconvient Truth" and it kinda opens your eyes. If we think there are not more alternatives for running cars than what is given to us we are kidding ourselves. How about a nuclear car? ;-) Never buy fuel for the life of the car good idea right!!! LOL

James


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gang

good post!!! I enjoyed reading!

I believe electricity will win the alternative fuel war. EV or plug in hybrid -or both.

EVs - electric cars with no gas engine, are great. I had one until a few months ago - a Toyota RAV4-EV. We loved it despite its shortcomings. We could basically charge it only at home - there are public charging stations around but they would never be where I needed them. And stopping to refuel isn't practical because it takes a very long time. A full charge overnight at home would take about 7 hours. And the range on a full charge was only about 100 miles. It was great for my wife as a commute car but we could live with it only because we also had a conventional ICE car for those times that the EV wouldn't cut it.

EVs will be more viable as battery technology progresses. Lithium batteries have double the energy capacity for the same weight, which means you can double the vehicle's range. They may also charge faster, I'm not sure. But charging is still a multi-hour deal. And litium-ion batteries are dangerous. They can explode from overheating. So the technological obstacles remain to be solved.

I think a plug-in hybrid provides all the advantages of an EV while overcoming its main shortcomings. It's the way to go.

BTW, I don't think we'll ever run completely out of oil or completely stop using it. The price will keep rising as reserves are depleted. It may cost its weight in gold, and there will be fewer and fewer applications where paying such a price makes sense, but they will not go away entirely. For example, we'll probably still be using jet fuel for airplanes after most of our cars are using alternative energy sources.

2006 HCH Alabaster Silver w/Navi
2003 Honda Accord LX

You are right. Hydrogen is not primary energy. I guess the primary energy could be water. Also, ethanol is not primary energy. The primary energy would be corn (or some other biomass); ethanol is a secondary energy. The question is, how much does it cost to turn the primary energy into the usable secondary energy.