Quote:
Originally Posted by wnut
Hybrid cars are just a sad joke, they are electric cars made inefficient by carrying a petrol engine and power train around, and a petrol power train made inefficient by carrying an electric motor and batteries around.
The ideal would appear to be a full size slot car set!
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I don't agree that hybrids as a concept are a joke although the current models may not be all that good, however whatever people might wish to be true the future is not fossil fuels. There are at least five technologies showing promise to store energy from whatever source for use by vehicles:battery (most mature), hydrogen fuel cells, hydrogen ICE, alcohol fuel cells or ICE, compressed gas and liquid air. all except liquid air have already been used in vehicles, in some parts of the world compressed air is powering short range delivery vehicles,a bit like the early uses of battery vehicles but rechargeable as quickly as filling a tank with diesel.
As with alternative energy in general you can criticise any one technology because it will not solve the problem alone and use that as an excuse to do nothing, the trick is to use all the good ideas to complement one another.