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Originally Posted by Xinger These are the same kind of things they said when the horse-and-buggy was about to be replaced by the internal combustion engine! And 25 or 50 or a hundred years down the line, this will be the same kind of things that are said when a newer, better technology replaces fuel cells as the primary energy source of personal transportation. And there will be naysayers even then... "how can water/air/garbage ever replace electricity as fuel in our cars," they'll say. "It'll never happen..." "I hope to never live to see the day..." etc etc.
Even today, most of the concept cars that companies come up with use some kind of fuel cell/hybrid technology. And yes, some of these are high-performance sports cars. And they do actually manage sports car-like performance! I have no doubt that inside of 10 years a sports car running on some kind of alternative fuel technology will easily outperform today's so-called 'supercars.'
Let's face it, Jeremy is a very entertaining host, but he belongs firmly to the middle part of the 20th century. |
No horse and buggy could match the performance and excitement of today's sports cars. And even these sports cars have been watered down nowadays with electronic nannies like top speed and rev limiters, a million bulky airbags, automatic transmissions etc. I'm all for road safety but they should at least make some cars these days which are just pure fun, nothing else.
As far as newer technologies are concerned, if we are not hovering around in our personal supersonic rocket cars with thrust vectoring within the next 30 years, then I'll be really disappointed. Other than that, the basic internal combustion engine has stayed the same for the past 100 years with a few minor tweaks here and there.
Running a battery powered electric motor in conjunction with a gasoline engine is no big achievement and cannot be termed as "new" technology. It's just a new idea. Next they'll tie down a horse to your car and call it a 1hp hybrid motor.
Last edited by sujaylahiri : 8th August 2009 at 08:26.
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