Green Cars
The increase in fuel prices has indirectly driven the popularity of green cars. Demand for hybrid cars such as the Toyota Prius has gained momentum to the extend where demand surpasses the production volume. This is a good sign for car manufacturers to start focusing their R&D on green cars powered by alternative energy sources. As the technology that runs purely on alternative energy sources is still in its infancy, hybrid cars is a good stop-gap solution until these alternative technology matures. I doubt anyone would buy a car that could only run at 60km/h when we have been accustomed to cars that could easily go twice the speed with responsive acceleration capabilities.
All major car manufacturers have shown great interest to start mass produce some sort of green car in the very near future. Now, I wonder when will the Malaysia national car maker, Proton (or Perodua for that matter) will join the green revolution? Well, perhaps they might just buy the technology from some big car manufacturers or perhaps ‘technology-transfer’ it from their next foreign car partner which have yet to be named (VW?).
The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO) predicts that the global oil production would peak around 2010, where the global oil supply would no longer be able to sustain the increasing demands of the global economy. Perhaps the current oil price is an early warning to us to start thinking seriously about renewable energy/green cars to reduce our dependency on petroleum?
There has been many alternative energy implementations of green cars, ranging from solar to fuel-cell, and many more which I might not even be aware of. In a country like Malaysia (as well as countries near the equator) where there is an abundance of sunlight throughout the year, the use of solar energy seems very feasible. However, at the moment the technology could only achieve approximately 15% efficiency, and its cost is beyond what one would call affordable (unless there is government incentives/subsidies, eg. South Australia). In the recent World Solar Challenge which ended in Adelaide, there were many entries from various universities around the world with solar cars that are still a long way from reaching mass production status. In my opinion, solar powered cars would only be feasible as a part of a hybrid car (used in combination with other energy sources) rather than a 100% solar powered car.
The most promising (with the most R&D investment made) alternative energy for green cars lies in fuel cell. It is based on the idea of combining hydrogen and oxygen to generate electricity (the reverse of electrolysis) with water (vapour) as a by-product. Well, this technology sounds promising, but I wonder if it would affect the humidity of the atmosphere. Perhaps I should read up more on this in the future.
One interesting approach which caught my attention was the use of air, or air pressure to be specific. I saw this documentary on TV sometime ago and thought that it was such a brilliant idea, and did some further reading on the internet. Among all the alternative energy for green cars, I think this is perhaps the cheapest to implement. The concept is basically using air pressure to push the piston like our conventional cars. The company (MDI) that came out with the prototype car claims that it could go 200-300km with one tank of air with a maximum speed of about 110km/h… Now that’s rather impressive. And all it takes is about 3-5 hours to recharge the air tank by plugging it to a power point, or 3 minutes in a ‘air-station’. If there is one thing that I’ve learnt about technology is that it’s not just about technology superiority but the ability to bring the technology to the public. If the company that owns this technology could bring it to the mass market or perhaps sell its technology to one of the major car manufacturers, I’m betting on this air technology to succeed or perhaps play a major part in the green car revolution. Well, that’s just my 2 cents.