Well, tell you the truth, big oil corporations are ready to pay big money to be in bisness. What I mean is that if all the cars in the world consumed a maximum of 5L / 100KM of fuel, oil companies will loose money. Most of them care not about the environmental impact; they just see numbers and dollar signs. I am glad that we live in a age where electric-powered cars are getting a head start faster! After all, electricity can be produced in very clean ways, even nuclear!

- DiGGY

Electric cars might be the future but they still have a long battle ahead of them. For example Zenn Motors builds electric cars in Quebec but they are all shipped to the U.S. because none of the provinces accept B.C. will pass legislation allowing them on our city streets.

Wow. $2.50 for diesel in 2008? Nice try. That's why they work for the EIA and not commodity trading.

to DiGMEH

I'm glad you already said that, it's true. Big oil companies are the ones paying off companies to keep fuel efficient cars off the streets so that they make their own pockets bigger.

Why dont we see this in production cars yet? I don't like burning fuel at all i would rather go clean but this can run on fuel or compressed air or even hydrogen 3 times more efficient than normal engines yet no one offers it what is wrong?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGlUZg2pC0Q

You see there are key fundamental problems to alternative sources of energy for vehicles..

A) The infrastructure is lacking in terms of filling stations for Hydrogen and other kinds of bio fuels that are available.

B) The cost of manufacturing the technology when there is a clear lack of infrastructure and thus a smaller audience to whom auto makers can appeal to make this a very hard transition.

C)Everybody likes the idea of electric hybrid or plug-in electric vehicles, ,but the fact is 50% of our electricity in the U.S in produced from Coal and only 20% is produced by Nuclear. Even if nuclear were to take charge down the road, its Achilles heel continues to remain on how to dispose of the radioactive byproducts. Obviously there is a plan to put in Yucca mountain, but that is just short term and the environmental impact down the road(leaks etc) could be devastating.....

Whoever invents a way to dispose of Nuclear waste will be the richest man in the world.....

P.S: Nuclear power does have certan security risks attached, though most of them have been take care of ( partial melt down, terrorist attack etc...)

Federal CAFE requirements are the same sort of approach as the centrally planned economy that worked so well for the Soviet Union.

Energy is getting more expensive, and so market forces are causing person mpgs to get better. People are starting to car pool, ride bikes, and buy small cars. This increased fuel economy takes place now -- not years from now, and it impacts ALL of the cars -- not the 10% of the fleet that gets replaced every year.

Rationing is another approach that has some benefits. It's another way to cause the energy using folks ( which includes me) to make choices.

The proposed standards will increase the cost and complexity of vehicles. Manufacturers will be able to say 'well, what can we do' , and there will be across the board price increases. Meanwhile, people will hang on to their existing vehicles longer because of the price of the new ones.

Get the feds out of the design business.

The real work here is to get these technologies all in the same vehicle. AFS just turned the Saturn SUV into a 50mpg hybrid by using LIPO batteries and ultra capacitors and regenerative braking. The use of both LIPO batteries and ultra capacitors were responsible for about 17 mpg in efficiency. AFS (the folks who build the XH150) claim that this would add $8,300 to the cost of a stock Saturn SUV if built in the factory this way.
There is a high compression engine that will be on Detroit vehicles by 2013 that at least doubles the gas mileage, and could possibly quadruple gas mileage. This would add $1,300.00 to the cost of a vehicle.
If I understand the description, putting the compressor on an engine would add another 40% minimum to a gas engines efficiency.
If all these technologies were put on the same car, you would get at least 140 mpg. Assuming our current fleet averages 20mpg, that would reduce our oil imports by about 58% over the next 10 years. This would reduce our need to fight in the Middle East or elsewhere in the world.
As a side note, you can build vehicles as large as a city transit bus as a hybrid. This would reduce our need for oil considerable, but I have not been able to find figures that would let me estimate the savings.
As for federal mandates, it's not just about social engineering anymore. It is a matter of foreign policy. To the degree we compete in the foriegn oil market, we have to be ready to fight overseas. If we can reduce our oil useage to something our domestic production can handle, then we reduce our liabilities overseas.

Hi,

This is very interesting, and hydrogen power is definitely around the corner. But how far away is the corner.

I recently found these articles, which explain how to supplement the regular gasoline in your car or truck with HHO gas extracted from water!

Apparently it can be done now!

How Does a Water Powered Car Work?

Run Your Car On Water

Gary.

I read Gary Perkin's post above - While I agree that hydrogen power may be around the corner, I do not believe that vehicles today have the ability run on water.

Like many people, I keep stumbling across all these websites about running cars on water. Everywhere you look you will find one or more ads about the topic - seems to me like the company is competing with itself to make $47.97.

Out of curiosity, I spoke to my mechanic at BMW and I asked him if he had seen these ads and if so what he thought about them. He told me that even if it were possible to extract hydrogen from water to fuel a vehicle today, the existing mechanics of a vehicle were not designed to work with water. Point blank - it would severely damage the vehicle and would cost thousands of dollars worth of damage.

I drive a 2007 BMW X5 and there is no way I would ever put water in my gas tank, nor would I ever make a change to my vehicle to let me put it any place else.

If anyone is interested, my mechanic did say that there is a product called Envirochip that they have been putting on some of their other customers’ vehicles. According to them, the chip has allows them to use 85 octane gas without having to add fuel additives. As we all know, that is about a $0.20 savings per gallon. So, I did my homework and found where to buy one, and now I am using regular gas in my car (without problems) and am I saving money each time I fuel up, plus I’m getting better mileage.