August 17th  2002

Fill 'er up, but with what?

Source:Toronto Star

Choosing among the hundreds of possibilities on the market today may be a simple task by comparison.

In 2020, not only will you have to decide what brand, body style, performance level and
feature content you want, you will probably have to make a far more basic choice, such as what form of powerplant the vehicle has - perhaps ranging from today's gasoline nnorm to a pure fuel-cell electric vehicle.

And what fuel you will use - and how you will get it.

In its brief 100 years of its existence, it seems, the auto industry has come full circle. During its early days, there was no consensus on how an automobile should be powered, or what fuel would prove best, or even what its configuration should be.

The same is true today about the auto of the future.

A century ago, electric and steam-powered cars were as common as those with internal
combustion engines. And much of the gasoline back then was closer to kerosene.

Coal gas fuelled many of the earliest engines, and Henry Ford's first Quadricycle putt-putted to life on ethanol (grain alcohol).

Indeed, more than one Model T was said to be running on homebrew.

Within 20 years, however, the basic powertrain became all but standardized: a gasoline-fuelled, internal-combustion engine mounted up front, driving the rear wheels.

There were variations - a few rear-engined cars, and some with diesel engines - but the only significant change in layout since then was a late-century shift from rear- to front-wheel drive for most autos.

Now, driven by energy and environmental concerns, as well as market pressures, that
comfortable conformity is being challenged on every front. Almost everything about the car as we know it is a candidate for change.

As a result, the next 20 years could see a complete reversal of what happened 100 years
ago - a divergence of the automobile from a near-standard form into a whole array of
alternatives, in terms of powerplant, fuel, and even basic configuration.

Your choice of fuel is likely to be a major part of your buying decision. Beyond just regular, mid-grade, or premium, your choices may be as diverse as solid-fuel cartridges and super-cooled liquid hydrogen.

That is why General Motors and most of the world's automakers are pursuing multiple parallel paths.

There are probably many suitable solutions to satisfy society's complex needs - but there may be just one that dominates all the others.

No automaker or fuel supplier, however, can afford to focus on a single alternative, in case ithappens to be the wrong one.

Five researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology described the complexity of
choices in a technical report called On The Road In 2020 - a life-cycle analysis of new
automobile technologies.

As an example of the wide range of alternatives available, the researchers identified and
studied seven high-potential energy-sources: gasoline and diesel fuel from petroleum stocks; compressed natural gas (CNG); synthetic diesel fuel, methanol, and hydrogen from natural gas; and electricity from the power grid.

In addition, power may be transmitted to the wheels - the one element that seems sure to last - through a whole array of mechanical, hydraulic or electrical drivetrains, or combinations thereof.

There are many challenges - economic, environmental, physical - to producing, transporting and storing alternative fuels such as hydrogen. These may well hold the keys to their ultimate success or failure.

No one faction or stakeholder will decide our fuel future unilaterally.

Automakers and energy providers will play a major role, although perhaps less so than
governments who establish regulations and steer research directions.

But they are all, in the end, responsible to us, the consumers and voters.

So the choices you face when you go car shopping a decade or two from now will be
choices you helped shape in the interim.

Progress in automobile design is an evolutionary process, and whatever evolves can only do so if it provides what consumers want along the way.

Over the next few weeks, we will look at some of the more promising future technology
alternatives in greater depth, beginning next week with the case for the internal combustion engine.