Gott launched his discussion with a look at the current global “car parc.” We have 800 million vehicles in the world today, he noted, with roughly 70 million new ones built each year. If China, India, and the rest of the world acquire as many vehicles per capita as Europe—which has roughly a car for every two people—we’ll end up with 3 billion cars on the planet by 2035. And if they use gasoline engines, we would need several times the volume of oil reserves currently known in Saudi Arabia just to fuel them.

Then Gott stepped back to 1900 for a history lesson. That year, US auto production was evenly split into thirds: Gasoline cars had 33 percent, but so did battery electric vehicles and steam cars. Of course, we know how that race turned out: Gasoline won, because it offered the virtues of autonomous range (no plugging in), speed, and ease of operation—once the electric self-starter was invented.

For the new century, though, three more factors come into play. Gott laid out the six criteria against which future vehicle power sources must be evaluated:

• Whole-cycle thermal efficiency, from “wells to wheels”
• Ease of monitoring and maintenance (to ensure low emissions and best efficiency)
• Diversity of energy sources—how widely available is the fuel, globally?
• Ease of use
• Autonomous range
• Cost

And battery electric vehicles end up with the best ratings across all six factors, compared to various types of combustion engines and fuel cells. The overall thermal efficiency of an EV is better, with 70 percent of a battery’s energy being converted to power—against just 25 percent of the energy in gasoline (heat and friction waste the rest). Coal-fired power plants aren’t hugely efficient (40 percent) but the electric grid will get progressively cleaner as federal and state mandates move toward restricting carbon and requiring a higher proportion of renewable sources. Fueling an EV with electricity generated entirely from renewable resources is best of all, of course.

Moving down the criteria, electric vehicles don’t need to be monitored for emissions, and electricity can be generated from a variety of sources and in many locations. They’re easy to use; and the steady evolution of battery technology will improve the range—even as the ways we use and pay for “transportation services” may change (think car-sharing, or paying by the mile for ownership, perhaps). Finally, cost will gradually come down to be competitive with combustion engines—and Global Insight’s various economists agreed that growing demand and the increasing cost of extraction will keep oil prices within their current range, or higher, for the foreseeable future.

These changes won’t happen overnight, and they don’t mean that combustion engines will vanish. Such changes will take decades, and there will always be duties for which only combustion engines are suited. And hybrids are very likely to claim an ever larger percentage of the road.

Gott pointed out that in 1900, battery and steam vehicles were preferred for city usage, while gasoline cars were only used in rural areas. Perhaps, he suggested, we may be headed back to the future.

Will Electric Cars Rule the Future?

Knowing the many innovations and excellent qualities BMW has contributed to the motor world, we can be sure that this would be another automotive engineering breakthrough that would set the par others would follow.

BMW said that their Hybrid car would run on both Hydrogen and petroleum and this would be first infused in the 7 series BMW. Already, BMW has some of these cars test driven in different countries. Researchers and engineers are already staging some tests and are getting feedbacks to perfect their first hybrid car release. BMW doesnt want to release just a beautiful looking car, they want one that will be truly environment friendly as well as performing beautifully.

Deviating from the usual fuel cells used by other hybrid car manufacturers, BMW decided on using hydrogen-fuel combined with an internal combustion engine. This led to more research and development needed because of the demand of the engine to keep the hydrogen in liquid form, and this poses as a problem in keeping them cold enough to do just that. If the engine becomes too hot, the hydrogen may evaporate requiring frequent fill ups. Another quandary is keeping the hydrogen from evaporating while in transit to the engine. But BMW has said that it has found the solution to this problem.

BMW sees hydrogen as the solution, but it would take about two more decades before a car can actually be run by hydrogen only. But they are positive that this is very achievable.

BMW claims that for the past thirty years, they have been developing technology that could just lead to the first ever pure hydrogen vehicle. They already have a car that is being powered by water, a car that emits water vapor at the tailpipe, and are to retrieve hydrogen from sunlight.

BMW has been focusing on Hydrogen as a great power source for cars because it is the best solution to the ever-worsening emissions from vehicles that contributes to environmental pollution. This is because hydrogen doesnt have dangerous emissions, it poses no harm to the atmosphere, it doesnt deplete natural resources, as it can be take from numerous recyclable sources. This is BMW’s solution, powering vehicles with hydrogen produced from water through the use of solar energy. This advancement in technology is evident with the BMW 750hl production car showcased at the Expo 2000. Together with some of its partners, BMW may be behind in the mass production of Hybrid cars, but they are the forefront in Hybrid technology.

Soon enough, we will all be the beneficiaries of all of these developments and innovations. Not only will we able to save up on gas money, we will also be saving the environment. Owning a Hybrid car doesnt have to mean riding in cramped cars with low engine power. With the unveiling of the BMW hybrid car in the near future, you get sophistication, power, elegance and style while helping clean up our air.

BMW Hybrid Car: German Engineering Brilliance fitted with Revolutionary Hybrid Technology