(Hybrid vehicles negative environmental impact) Future Cars Today
No commentsBy Jazel Tennings
Few things capture the thoughts like the mysterious future. Movies and television have shown us some pretty imaginative possibilities of what cars would become. What form did you think transportation would take in the year 2010? Floating space speeders like on The Jetsons? Hovering craft like in Star Wars? We imagined better, faster, cooler cars than ever.
Technology has taken a completely different direction. Cars already do what we need them to do. No purpose other than extreme coolness would be served by having cars that hover. The police are busy trying to slow drivers down because our cars already go more than fast enough. A lot of the time we can’t even use the speed our cars are capable of because there’s too much traffic. Aesthetics are still important, but rather than buying the flashiest possible car, people are choosing streamlined, attractive cars. After market upgrades are made to blend in with the original - boring - look of the car. Huge improvements in reliability and safety have become more important than other considerations.
So what do we need from our cars that we dont have? Even more practicality, in the form of fuel efficiency. Driving our cars is hard on our wallets because the price of gasoline has risen so much. The most recent innovation thats catching everyones attention is cars that run on less gasoline, or even better, no gasoline at all. Automakers have a lot of choices for reaching this goal, from hydrogen to biofuel to propane. None of these technologies is perfect yet, especially economically.
One technology has taken the lead in the last few years and reached the consumer via the car dealership showroom: electricity. Fully electric cars are starting to appear at dealerships now - not far behind their hybrid counterparts. The Toyota Prius was the first to be offered at a price that large numbers of consumers could afford. The other automakers followed closely on their heels. Choices now include the Infiniti M35, Nissan Altima, Ford Escape and Honda Civic. Cadillac’s Escalade and GMC’s Sierra prove that hybrids no longer have to be only small, lightweight cars. The government has helped by offering incentives to those involved in manufacturing or buying cars that use less gasoline and are less damaging to the environment. You can go buy one of these cars today at your local Dallas Ford Dealerships, Atlanta Honda Dealer or Dectur GMC Dealership with no problem.
The fully electric car is the next big thing in cars. They’ve been out in very small numbers until now, seen at car shows or as part of a fleet of cars driven by the local electric company. The Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf are finally hitting showrooms. New cars are clearly headed in this direction despite unresolved issues like price of batteries and limited range.
Good old fashioned fuel effiecienoncity is getting overlooked to some degree. A car can run on gasoline, but use a lot less of it. This is a technology thats been slowly but steadily improving for many years. Look at the non-hybrid version of the Honda Civic, which gets 34 MPG or the Ford Focus with its 35 MPG highway. I never would have imagined such numbers when I filled up my first V8 muscle car when gas cost only $1.35 a gallon.
So while were unlikely to see cars like the DeLorean from Back to the Future or Kitt from the Knight Rider, cars will continue to evolve to meet our ever-changing needs. Americas love affair with the automobile is far from over.
Written by Jazel Tennings
Los Angeles Infiniti Dealer
Your Source For Information On Hybrid Vehicles
Wednesday, June 9th, 2010 at 3:35 am and is filed under automotive. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
