By Andre Palma
Philippine Daily Inquirer
LOOKING at the automotive future is always a tricky thing as people gazing into crystal balls need to practice a little discipline, a little constraint. It is tempting to paint the motoring tomorrow as our own fantasy world. Some will dream of a vehicular utopia, where carbon signatures and sustainable consumption dictate the way we motor.
Others will lean toward a picture painted in a post-apocalyptic world, where scarcity fuels petroleum wars and a thick chemical cloud bakes the earth into extinction. It is only when we look at the facts and the trends that a more or less accurate peek into the future of how we will continue our relationship with the car.
The first thing we have to accept is that the car will change drastically over the next few decades. Already the small, efficient and utilitarian automobile is an established segment very popular across markets around the world. Whether industrialized nation or third world banana republic, the rules of the game are changing; no one is immune from the powers of economic and ecological pressure.
A majority of the concept vehicles doing the international show circuit take the idea of the shrinking car even further. The single seat, upright half-shell motorized wheelchair powered by spent cooking oil, apple cores or flat soda seems to be the trend. Kidding aside, out-of-the-box mobility solutions never looked so quirky and dreary.
Performance is no longer just horsepower, torque, 0-60-kph times and cornering g-forces. Fuel consumption is as big a part of the marketing numbers game now. The ability to deliver more mileage to the liter is now just as sexy to the consumer as acceleration, grip and top speed. To most of us who motor on a daily basis, this is already the greatest consideration.
The rush to find alternative fuel sources is a free-for-all right now but a trend is starting to become clear. The stop-gap solution to carbon emissions and fuel scarcity is the internal combustion engine mated to an electric motor: the hybrid engine concept already available in certain markets. Best bets are on a diesel hybrid becoming the standard engine configuration in the future because of the increasing production levels of renewable sources of diesel like palm and coconut oil.
The hybrid shift will take decades to complete yet dependence on fossil fuel will eventually have to a full stop. The mere fact that petroleum reserves are finite in nature dooms any sort of long-term, future viability as our primary automotive fuel source. We will run out of oil eventually. Does this ultimately doom the automobile? We can take a hint from the billions spent toward the development of the hydrogen fuel cell as a clear indicator of the eventual energy source that will take over.
The simplicity of the hydrogen fuel cell equation is poetic almost, and seems to answer all the world’s woes about fuel consumption and carbon emissions. Take simple hydrogen, probably the most common element in the known universe, and pass it through a top secret fuel cell apparatus. Mix with oxygen in the right ratio and create pure water, expel into the environment as exhaust gas.
Somewhere in the chemical reaction aided by the fuel cell, tap the electrical by-product of the reverse electrolysis. Store electrical energy in a battery and use to power a direct-drive electric motor. Drive along with a clear conscience and an even cleaner environment.
Beyond the bio-diesel hybrids, the hydrogen fuel cell and the wheelchair-sized cars, your guess about the far-flung automotive future is as good as mine. The line between science fiction and technological fact is being pushed on a daily basis. The next great idea may just be already in the mind of a young engineer working at any one of the world’s automotive giants.
Let’s just hope he loves to drive as you and I do. Some future vehicle designs omit the need for a human driver altogether and use a hive mind-like concept to manage traffic and safety — but that’s another column’s worth of complaining right there, sometime in the future.
