The car of the future should be no car at all.

Bikes, feet, maglev trains, - stuff like that.

Though, I must admit that once I get some money together (or have time to search for a grant) I am going to do an electric conversion of an old subcompact of some kind and build a solar charging station for it.

I would get an EV1 from GM and just build the charging station - but, oh - well, they seem to have destroyed them all.

Bikes, feet, maglev trains, - stuff like that.  

IMPOSSIBLE...Unless the US becomes just ONE BIG CITY with no suburban areas. It's IMPOSSIBLE for me to take any mass transit on a regular basis. Real tough to walk or bike 45 miles to work...ESPECIALLY IN SNOW.

As for the future...It's very tough to say. I don't envision the personal transport vehicle ever going away. I think electric vehicles that have a range of 200 miles and can recharge in minutes is within my lifetime. Hydrogen vehicles are also within my lifetime. But for the near future we'll still have the internal combustion engine. The source for the fuel is the question. Diesel from Coal is very very doable right now.

IMPOSSIBLE...Unless the US becomes just ONE BIG CITY with no suburban areas. It's IMPOSSIBLE for me to take any mass transit on a regular basis. Real tough to walk or bike 45 miles to work...ESPECIALLY IN SNOW.  

What a skeptic!

When the US economy shifted from an agricultural-based economy to a manufacturing-based economy, there was a mass exodus from the farms to the cities. Then when the economy shifted from a manufacturing-based economy to a consumer-based economy, urban sprawl happened. So why is it impossible for the population to shift back to the cities?

When gas is $10 a gallon, you might be forced to move to a city to find a job. The jobs will go where they can be filled and the people will follow, just like during the Industrial Age.

Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it.

When gas is $10 a gallon, you might be forced to move to a city to find a job. The jobs will go where they can be filled and the people will follow, just like during the Industrial Age.  

It's NOT being a skeptic...it's being realistic. As I stated the ONLY way it will happen if it's just ONE BIG CITY....If there are no cars then no one will live in the city....It will take DECADES IF NOT CENTURY'S for that to happen. I guarantee you'll NEVER see it in your lifetime.

OK. I guess it was also IMPOSSIBLE the last time urbanization happened.

OK. I guess it was also IMPOSSIBLE the last time urbanization happened. 

One has NOTHING to do with the other. In order for there to be NO INDIVIDUAL CARS...then we'd ALL have to be living in a city....You want to explain HOW that can happen.

Or maybe not, if $10/gallon gas arrives along with $40/hour starting wages at convienience stores where the countertops have a "take a dollar-leave a dollar" basket next to the cash register.

When gas reaches $10 there's going to be a MASS exodus to the cities...I don't think so.

Cities will have to QUADRUPLE in size to accommodate everyone. And since in YOUR world there won't be any personal vehicles we all better be living there or we're NOT going to survive or live our lives in complete isolation.

Another point...there's MORE THEN enough coal to be converted to Diesel in this country to keep us supplied for the next 2-3 hundred years. So we're NOT going to run out just yet.

...in YOUR world there won't be any personal vehicles we all better be living there or we're NOT going to survive or live our lives in complete isolation.  

I never said that there would be no individual cars, did I? I just checked. I didn't say anything even remotely like that. Take a deep breath and calm the hell down.

Have you ever been to New York City? If you live there, a car is a liability. Some New Yorkers own cars, but in most cases, mass transit is a better way to get around.

Look at history as an example. During the Industrial age, many people moved from farms to cities to find jobs. Do you deny that that ever happened? Now imagine an expansion of mass transit happening at the same time. You do have an imagination, don't you? It would be kind of like when the automobile industry and fuel infrastructure grew at the same time. Look at the economy in the macroeconomic view. As fuel becomes more expensive, we will have to shorten our commutes or find better ways to commute. Those who now commute long distances, like 40 miles or more each way, will need to find cost effective alternatives. They will need to either move closer to work, use mass transit, or both. There will eventually be a point where gasoline is so expensive that most people will have to change their lifestyles. They might not need to give up their cars, they just won't be able to afford to drive them as many miles as they do now. That is all I am trying to say. We are all circling around the true answer to the problem. We can't spend our way out of this problem. We can't find some magic wand that will cure the energy crisis. We can't just close our eyes and hope it will get better. Eventually, we will have to make lifestyle changes, and I believe this will involve a realignment of the population from urban and suburban areas to those that are either closer to jobs or those that are serviced by mass transit. Don't agree, fine. Your opinion doesn't have to agree with mine. If you claim that a realignment of the population is impossible, I suggest you look at the historical data that confirms that it has happened in the past.

I never said that there would be no individual cars, did I? I just checked. I didn't say anything even remotely like that. Take a deep breath and calm the hell down.  

I suggest you go back and re-read the posts...This time SLOWLY so you can understand it.

First off YOU argued against my response to "amature" when he/she said there would be no personal vehicles. YOU'RE the one who argued against me saying I was WRONG saying that's IMPOSSIBLE. So YES you weren't the one who made the initial statement...but you ARGUED against me when I said we'd still have cars.

I called you a skeptic. I never said you were wrong. YOU made that leap of judgement. I believe one can be skeptical and right at the same time. Only time will tell who is right and I really don't think that opinions come in "right" and "wrong" anyway. Thay are just opinions, you silly skeptic.

The way things are going, we may have $10 gas in about 5 years. Yesterday the economic chief of a very prestigious bank forecast $225 oil by 2012 latest, based on his bank's analysis of growing demand, and supply not growing accordingly. And, no, starting wages at 7-11 will not be $40/hr, more like $15 at most.

Our politicians are still saying that the US economic slowdown will depress the oil price; wake up and smell the money from China and India lining up to buy all this oil. Even Britain will soon be a net oil importer as North Sea reserves dwindle.

The US demand was forecast to be virtually zero growth because of rising fuel prices, but 90% of new growth would come from developing coubtries; China, India, and others.

US oil imports, now at 60% of total consumption, will continue due to the lack of new domestic sources. Current imports (60%) are 18% from Canada, and the rest from Mexico, Nigeria, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and others. As Mexican production falls rapidly, Canada will supply 30% of all US oil within 5 years.

Anyone shopping for a 300hp SUV will need to use that $10/gallon figure to calculate the lifetime cost. If you buy one anyway, the resale value in 4 years will be very little. We experienced this during the first oil crisis in the 70s. Henry Ford II joked that "people will pay almost anything for an economy car".

Those numbers sound about right to me. Hopefully those prices will drive the U.S. consumption/production ratio low enough to decrease the percentage of imported oil. That may help the dollar, at least a little. Once prices get up to a reasonable level, the demand for lower end large/high performance vehicles will decrease. The niche market for alternative vehicles (electric, H2, etc.) will increase somewhat but will still be a minority. We will see smaller, cheaper, and more efficient asian vehicles (the hybrid thing may be over by then). I don't think the high end market will be affected very much. Of course, the domestic manufacturers will be caught wondering what happened.

It's IMPOSSIBLE for me to take any mass transit on a regular basis. Real tough to walk or bike 45 miles to work...ESPECIALLY IN SNOW. Clearly you don't live where they have decent options. Most major cities, like NY London Dublin... Have such systems.

Don't worry, in the years to come as fuel becomes more expensive that will change. As people start demanding good transit systems and start working closer to home (or living closer to work) we well stop thinking that every trip is a car trip. Less than 100 years ago the first Model T came off the line. Only a few years prior to that, cars were a novelty. Even during WWII the use of cars was often replace with horse or mass transit. I sure looks that we are headed there again. It really was not all that bad.

One of the cool things about the Nova special was that it showed that alternative fuels, like Hydrogen, can be used in mass transit vehicles with little change to the infrastructure.

No they haven't destroyed them all. They're being held in a secret warehouse facility in the northern tier of Michigan. Eventually, the cars will be released for sale to GM and media excutives and appear in the back of Hemmings' Motor News for resale. Of course, you can buy a Solectria (GM Metro/Sprint with Electric Motor) or an electric Chevrolet S-10 or Ford Ranger pick-up on Ebay. It is also possible to get a first generation Toyota Corolla Hybrid and strap the gasoline engine (empty the tank of gasoline), install additional batteries, get the charger wiring from Japan or have it constructed here, and run it on electricity. You can even recharge the batteries using solar energy. Google solarvan to see how its done in the UK. You can also get a magnetic motor from a Dyson vacuum, some camcorded or laptop batteries, wire them up on a bicycle and you've got an EV.

Private passenger cars will become very small and lightweight and will be powered by several different energy sources, depending on how the vehicle will be used and what you can afford.. Since private vehicles are more status symbol than they are transportation, wealth will of course continue to display itself with big, heavy gas hogs, like the Hummer fans do today..The coming energy crisis (for real this time) will change the way we live from the top down..

Agree that there will always be choice in vehicles. However, someone showing up in a Hummer at a classy restaurant 5 years from now will be treated with the same respect as one who chews tobacco or has BO.

In England, most large cars are available with small engines, Jaguar even has a diesel to gain social respectability.

If you put a HHO precipitator or a hydrogen fuel cell you can run a Hummer for a few cents a day on sea (salt) water. Remember the HUMMER (Tahoe/Suburban chassis') have tremendous room to mount such energy producing devices. They are already proven to be able to handle large electric motor like those Siemmens made for Ford's F150EV. There has to be a way to power large size vehicles economically or else we are as a society "toast". Most goods, such as food, are carrier by Tractor/Trailer Trucks ("Big Rigs") which means that if we can't get them to run on hydrogen, skip that biodiesel crap there isn't enough cookin oil in the world to keep them on the road. So if you can't get light trucks like the Hummer H2/H3 to run on non-carbon fuels you aren't going anywhere.

The fuel should be whichever requires the lowest amount of energy per unit, at the lowest cost (in money and environmental affects) per energy unit, to produce and get to the user. The efficiency of the user mobile, is another part of the equation.

We (the general public) don't have that knowledge. So, when we do have that knowledge, we can decide on which energy sources, and what mix.