Will gasoline powered cars exist in production in 20 years? 30 years?

All of the alternatives are too expensive for most people and I've

read a couple things that say the cost isn't going to come down

all that much. If so, the average driver will keep buying internal combustion cars. If there are buyers someone will make and sell them.

Wireless charging of electric devices will make the need for powerful batteries not so crucial. Wireless charging has already been shown as a proof of concept. Imagine driving an electric car down the highway while your battery is recharged from wireless cell-like towers.

Ever been to Cuba?

Aghast wrote:

Wireless charging of electric devices will make the need for powerful batteries not so crucial. Wireless charging has already been shown as a proof of concept. Imagine driving an electric car down the highway while your battery is recharged from wireless cell-like towers.

That was sort of my idea with the rails. It may work better with an overhead wire that wirelessly charges cars. Transmitting energy over long distances is not that efficient because the single fades.

If self driving cars become 100% safe and we are able to remove all the safety equipment and the steering column, it'll save a few hundred pounds on the car and a few thousand dollars in your pocket.

Historically, governments are very bad at picking winners and losers.

Utopia is made of Unobtainium.

Who said the government is going to pick the winner?

TCB wrote:

Battery technology is advancing rapidly. Additionally, technology for self driving cars should be ready in 15 years, which will make car travel safer, meaning cars won't need all their safety equipment, making them much lighter. These two combined could reasonably allow a car to travel 400+ miles on a single charge with charges taking under an hour. I think 20-30 years is very reasonable for the extinction of the internal combustion engine. Think of where we were 20 years ago with computers and cell phones. They barely existed. Cell phones are many magnitudes more powerful than the computers that existed back then. The jump to an all electric car world is not as far as we went with computers and cell phones. This is the timeline I'm predicting:

2017- every major car maker has at least one all electric car in its fleet

2022- every major car maker has at least one all electric car in each size category.

2024- states begin installing rails on highways to allow cars and trucks to charge while driving.

2028- first completely autonomous cars are released to the market.

2031- Dept of Transportation mandates all new vehicles must use autonomous technology.

2035- all cars built without airbags, seatbelts, etc.

2037- EPA bans use of eternal combustion engine in new cars.

You should print this out and put it in a shoebox on the top shelf of your closet. Then in 2037, when you're about 45, you can take it out and read it and have a few laughs about how ridiculously idealistic and naive you were in your youth.

A liquid with a heat of combustion of 47.0 kJ/g.

Gas is so compelling, it will be hard to overcome. Unless regulation changes the economics to force another choice, yes they'll be in production 30 years from now.

An engineer wrote:

I think you're overlooking how difficult it will be to make a car completely autonomous and able to react to any situation.

You're overlooking how low humans have set the bar.

TCB wrote:

Who said the government is going to pick the winner?

Indeed. You just proved my point.

I don't understand. The government will not pick the winner. I don't know why you thought that was implied. I can say with 100% certainty that there will be legislation that will try to move us away from oil, but the market will ultimately decide what energy source we will use to power our cars in 30 years.

I think electric cars will win over gasoline because all the major car makers are already devoting huge sums of capital toward improving their design and the efficiency of batteries and the supply of oil will soon decline so that the within 20 years the cost of operating an electric car will be much lower than the cost of a gasoline car.

Keep in mind that by 2025 the world's population will be about 8 billion people and the combined economies of the G7 will be smaller than the combined economies of the emerging 7 (China, India, Brazil, Russia, Indonesia, Mexico, and Turkey). It makes much more sense already for them to use electric cars and they will have considerable force in determining the which products companies make. There simply won't be enough gas being produced for there to be 4 billion cars on the road, not unless each car is using 1/5 of what it is currently using, which is possible using batteries.

Aghast wrote:

Wireless charging of electric devices will make the need for powerful batteries not so crucial. Wireless charging has already been shown as a proof of concept. Imagine driving an electric car down the highway while your battery is recharged from wireless cell-like towers.

Until everyone starts dying of Cancer in their 50s...

An engineer wrote:

I think you're overlooking how difficult it will be to make a car completely autonomous and able to react to any situation.

perspective wrote:

You're overlooking how low humans have set the bar.

What bar? I didn't say it wouldn't be done. difficult=expensive

They will be around and still going strong.

TCB wrote:

I don't understand. The government will not pick the winner. I don't know why you thought that was implied. I can say with 100% certainty that there will be legislation that will try to move us away from oil, but the market will ultimately decide what energy source we will use to power our cars in 30 years.

I think electric cars will win over gasoline because all the major car makers are already devoting huge sums of capital toward improving their design and the efficiency of batteries and the supply of oil will soon decline so that the within 20 years the cost of operating an electric car will be much lower than the cost of a gasoline car.

I am guessing that you do not see the contradiction in the first paragraph. Legislation to move us away from oil and then let us choose from the remaining lousy choices.

Let's remove ALL government subsidies into electric, hydrogen, etc cars and windmills. If they are viable, the public will choose.

Also, where is all that electricity coming from to power these electric cars?

You honestly are 100% sure there will be legislation passed to move us away from oil? Do you have any idea as to how much the oil industry influences our laws and national policies?

There is no contradiction. Just because the government will try to ease the pain of moving to an alternative source of automobile fuel doesn't mean that it will hand pick what the alternative will be. The electricity could come from an oil power plant for all I care, and it would still use less energy than what we are doing now. Most experts agree that if we remain on the same path we are on now, by mid century we will be paying $20+ per gallon of gas. If cars are using the equivalent of one gallon to travel 150+ miles, then it won't be too great an issue. What I mean by legislation is that there will be at least an increase in the gas tax, or more guarantees on loans for nuclear power plants, or maybe even a carbon tax. Politicians aren't completely brain dead, they know that the future will be a troubling time if we continue to rely on oil--something that every President has expressed for that last half century. And each President has signed legislation (very limited) to move us away from oil.

Also, check subsidies for coal mining. You probably agree with me on getting rid of those, and if we did, unsubsidized wind power would be cheaper.

Yes, because oil is awesome.