The New Age of Eco-Powered Cars?

Inspired by an article I read in Bloomberg Markets (Mar 08):

Its obvious that the excessive private use of cars is the biggest sticking point when it comes to trying to reduce sources of pollution in towns and cities. Soon, if not already, driving responsibly may become more akin to efforts to stop excess alcohol consumption.



Dont get me wrong, I am currently driving more than any other mode of transport - and eradicating cars altogether is not the solution as automobiles are an inherent need of ours. However, no one said they needed to be powered by oil.

Since the rise of the petrol fuelled car as the de-facto form of personal transport pre-1920, there was too little investment or thought put into alternative fuel power. As we move towards 2010, we are still only in the introductory phase of commercialising vehicles running on hydrogen, electricity or other greener fuels - this smacks of a lack of foresight and true empathy from governments and automobile manufactures. Indeed Governments and corporations need to get better at setting priorities as 95% of the worldwide transportation sector is still dependant on liquid hydrocarbons.




Some problems so far:

Manufacturers are struggling to perfect cars that run on ethanol, diesel, natural gas, hydrogen and household electricity. At the same time they still rely on profits from larger 4-door cars to fund any advances in this field, and so selling more 'environmentally unfriendly' cars is a necessity.

With the knowledge of what is likely when fossil fuels become much more scarce - but with little real action to support - many of us are taking small steps such as switching to fluorescent light bulbs. Meanwhile we are setting ourselves up for a shock - by living how we want for as long as possible and then having to set up massive change and social/industrial programmes to fix everything in a few years - when the crunch time begins.

Without enough joined up action by government-industry and society, Bill Reinert, working on Toyota Motor Corp's next generation of cars, believes consuming more scarce oil will result in it becoming so dear that the following apocolyptic scenario springs to his mind:

"the world would resemble the one in Blade Runner. In the 1982 film, the rich live hundreds of stories high and the poor walk dark, rain-soaked streets. Or the lack of oil may cause the breakdown of social order depicted in the 1979 movie Mad Max."


What Solutions are there?

The HEV, or Hybrid Electric Vehicle has become the front runner of the 'green' generation of cars. Ford and General Motors tried unsuccessfully with models of electric powered car which failed to win industry and consumer hearts. However, the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic Hybrid have sold far more so far in the UK, even with sales still in the thousands - these brands have carved out their small chunk of the market.

Meanwhile, Toyota plans two new hybrid only models by 2009. VW, and Hyundai are planning to have fuel cell and hybrid models in the market by 2010. Still a long way to go - in the meanwhile efforts to ween us off our love of high powered petrol cars need to step up radically.

Hence, the need to revert to the point of this blog, individual action - taking the responsibility ourselves to change our travel habits could speed up and increase efforts by all vehicle manufacturers, certainly in the West where car demand has shown some signs of slower growth.

So, are you optimistic about future efforts of manufacturers to provide these new eco-friendly cars, maybe you have something to add about the failure of such vehicles to date? Let us know....