The cars of the future? No doubt about it.
A lot of people are unable to come to terms with the fact that we, on a global basis, are running out of oil in such significant quantities that are used at present, particularly in the US. Whilst the rest of the world has often had to pay a lot for their fuel, the US has been cosseted by the politicians and American oil producers to ensure an uninterrupted flow of cheap gas for the gas-guzzling cars produced in that country.
Various “oil reserves” are left both in the US and all over the world, but you don’t have to be very good at mathematics to work out that this is not a sustainable commodity and has a finite future in terms of major usage.
The Hybrid car has been developed all over the world to counteract the blindness of the oil “barons and conglomerates” who seem to wish for short term profits as opposed to long term solutions to the Energy Crises.
It has been very easy in the US, with cheap gas in the service stations, to ignore the future. However new technology is at last being financed, particularly in countries who cannot afford large quantities of what is now very expensive oil on the World Markets, to use alternative and preferably renewable sources of energy.
Agricultural commodities are the obvious sources initially, transferring the sun’s energy, by photosynthesis into plant forms from which one can extract alcohol to fuel either electric generators or indeed cars.
Solar power can drive cars. At a recent competition a solar powered car ran for over 1000 miles.
Hybrid cars are, as their name suggests, half way in between using oil products and other mediums for propulsion. Whilst a lot of countries are moving to LPG (liquid petroleum gas) this is also an exhaustible commodity in the long term. Methane from such things as cow dung is only exhaustible if the cow has nothing to eat. Middle Eastern people and many other civilisations have been using this fuel for thousands of years, and still do. The methane, once captured, propels many farmers’ cars particularly in England.
