Quote:
Originally Posted by kuhlka
Read up on super capacitors. All-electric quick-charging cars aren't that far away. Some prototypes are using bodywork as batteries.
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I think that's a bit further off than people hope, there's also safety concerns (body panel ruptures, bunch of charge goes where?) but I think it's feasible within our lifetimes (for the younger members) that we go all electric for personal transportation. I mean, we theoretically have fuel cells that are acceptable for transportation usage (The Honda Clarity has been around for over 5 years now) but we can't quite nail down the formula or build the infrastructure. Not everything promising today pans out tomorrow, just check out the nuclear cars of the 50's and the rotary prototypes from the late 60's.
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_FCX_Clarity"]Honda FCX Clarity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon"]Ford Nucleon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_Rotary_Combustion_Engine"]General Motors Rotary Combustion Engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
20 years ago if you had told people that some of the most popular cars would be hybrids the average consumer would have laughed. 120 years ago they would have been baffled that we ever moved away from electric motors in the first place.