Check out China’s BYD display at Geneva Motor Show!

I retract what I said above about coal fired grid power not being the likely outcome of plugin hybrids – the Chinese are already building a new one every few days! Oh dear.

Let me clarify my shorthand…

Near Term – Hybrids keep improving, better efficiency, better looks, better batteries (read cheaper, lighter, greter energy capacity)

Medium Term – Plug in hybrids – still use IC engine, but rely less on petrol/diesel etc and more on grid power

Longer Term – Range on batteries improves to the point where you don’t ever need to use your petrol/diesel etc – when people get comfortable with this manufacturers respond by dropping the IC engine altogether.

Hence my post – Hybrids will continue to grow but will be phased out when batteries improve.

Think about it – between mobile phones, PCs, hybrid cars, off peak power storage – all driving toward better batteries. Its inevitable. May not even be batteries as we know them – latest R&D is in area of “ultracapacitors”.

Oh and those who think electric equals lame – check out the Tesler. 0-100 in 3.9 sec, looks great – but costs Euro 100k – for now!

Golfy – Grid power need not mean coal clean or otherwise. If you are looking to reduce CO2, a fixed generator, is always much better. Natural gas fired combined cyle gas turbines run at 60+% efficiency vs what 20% for an IC engine in a car?

In fact plug in electric vehicles will actually help with the economics of renewables – since they can store excess power produced in off peak periods. Its even been suggested utilities may be prepared to pay you (up to $4k/yr!) for this if they can buy the power back from you at peak times.

Petrol and diesel engines will never, ever stop improving. Some people here – not you, necessarily – seem to think they have. Puzzling.

That statement contradicts your other statement above where you infer the Hybrids are the way to go. By its nature a Hybrid runs on either petrol or diesel with electricity generated by the same,so by your own statement no petrol no diesel you should add no Hybrid. Think about it and come back when you make more sense.

If it was technically possible to build an economically viable electric vehicle with 90\’s technology/oil prices then another car manufacturer would have filled the void, built em and sold em – capitalism is a wonderful thing.

Even big oil’s pockets aren’t that deep (I know – I used to work for one!)

All yee Prius critics should put the current status of Hybrid performance into perspective – what we are dealing with is the Model T Ford equiv of the Hybrid world. Hybrid will surpass straight IC engine cars (whether petrol, dieselor other) – its just a matter of the time/iterations required to refine & improve the technology.

Battery technology will continue to improve, energy recovery & control systems likewise and yes even the styling of hybrids will improve.

As I’ve stated before – Hybrid uptake will drive improvements in battery technology and once you can get 500km range on a robust battery platform the IC engine will be dropped and we will all be recharging from home.

No more diesels, no more petrol, fuel cells/H2 will never even get a look in.