Car of the Future
This one-hour program is divided into six chapters. Hitting The Road. Projections suggest that by 2050 there will be two billion vehicles on the world’s roads, two and a half times as many as there are today. The “Car Talk” duo, brothers Tom and Ray Magliozzi, hit the road in search of the car of the future.
Hydrogen Fuel Cells. Iceland, with a thousand times fewer people and cars than the U.S., has introduced the world’s first hydrogen-fueled public buses in an effort to curb dependence on imported oil.
Towards Biofuels. Tom and Ray look at possible new ways to make ethanol. Such “biofuels” have much lower greenhouse-gas emissions but, critics say, come at a cost.
Frontiers of Efficiency. Engines have become more fuel-efficient over the years, but that efficiency has been channeled into more powerful vehicles rather than improving fuel economy.
Plugging In. Can the next generation of hybrid cars cause an energy revolution by allowing us to plug into the grid? Vehicles powered from power plants could substantially reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
Taking Action. To make the switch to more Earth-friendly vehicles, we need more than visionary thinkers and eco-conscious consumers, experts say. We need concerted government action.
Watch the full documentary now
why are people voting so low? the hosts in this doc are hilarious, 9 from me!!
Hey vladko,hows it goin man! id really like to watch dis doc but it downloads to slow,is there anything u can do ?
Sorry for spelling your name wrong dude,vlatko,excellent site,cheers man.
wats up with this video,it doesnt seem to load at all!
It loads. It’s in HQ (High Quality) and probably you’ll have to press that little read button “HQ” on the player to turn it off. Than it should stream well.
I loved this one. They make a big asumption about global warming and carbon emisions but other than that they aproach everything with good pro and con observations.
Informative and to the point. Can this design be used in larger capacity transportation such as large trucks. My SUV often has to move some heavy items is the torque in this new technology there?
hey vlatko im now fully addicted to this awesome site , as an enlightened American i praise you doing this, on the other end the hosts make this a very ammusing doc. while laying down the necessary info
An electric motor would have much higher torque than the conventional internal combustion motors. The most common problem is getting better, lighter batteries. The Tesla shown here is much heavier than The Lotus Elise it’s based on, yet it will blow past the Elise on the straights. (Top Gear had an episode on the subject)
So we will not give up performance, we would actually get an improvement in it. Before I started researching this, I thought the opposite was true.
I love Click and Clack.
the real solution is generic batteries that can be changed at gas stations like we swap gas bottles for camping. i made a short one minute animation about it, find that here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YamdkkIbjP4
of course i tried to get the idea out but it too was suppressed…
yeah spot on Vlatko btw one of the best sites on the net. hope they dont try close you down too!
10 out of 10…
Thanks @rightCharlie. I don’t think that will happen. The videos are just embedded.
This site does not host any of the streaming media and the owner has not uploaded any of the material to the video hosting servers. Anyone can find the same content on GoogleVideo, YouTube or any other video sharing site by them selves.
This website is the best. Great amount of hard work seems to have put… has worked very well. keep it up.
Interesting documentary in regards to some of the technologies and concepts at their status. A more thorough look into this topic would discuss real energy issues and eco/political impacts.
I suggest anyone who liked this file watch the documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?” with focus on the battery technology used in GM’s car and the fact that the company was bought out and then the electronics developed and perfected by GM. Compare the technology and commentary in that older documentary and then listen to the GM reps again in this film. Either they are lying here about the batteries being the hold up on the Volt manufacturing and release or I am missing something.
I would behoove people to also understand the economics and working of the electric grid. Power companies could just about pay you to charge your car at night during off peak hours (even though the demand is almost nothing). Generators must come down in load at night because the demand is not there. This is not easy esp. with large base load generators like big coal and Nuclear (you can’t just switch these plants on and off). This is also another reason why wind power is not the savior energy source that people think it is. (e.g. in the NE the wind blows at night — when you don’t want the power).
Hi guys,
Iv seen another documentary on this site claiming that the whole global warming theory Is a hoax.
Is this true?
Really hope so.. As I love cars
I just cant Imagine driving anothing other than a petrol guzzling Ferrari. (In the future unfortunatly)
Id rather grow a forest to make ammends!
As economical and great that It sounds,
I just cant help think they will be pretty awful to drive..
(And made for straight lines no doubt)
i guess battery technology evaluation is still slow.. lethium batteries are best till so far…. y dont they do research on battery techonogly …. holding intense energy in single battery that would change the world in every field…
The problem with electric cars before was the speed or lack there of, it seems they have that worked out. Love the carbon fiber panels. I want solar panels embedded in the carbon for my car, I can’t see why they wouldn’t be able to use it in a decorative way since the flexibility of that material is improving as well.
Hi everyone, as CitizenPete mentioned above “Who Killed the Electric Car?”is great doc and answers some of your questions about torque, battery technology, range and speed.
The totally electric car is possible and should have been a reality years ago if it wasn’t for car manufacturers colluding with oil companies to kill the electric car.
For all you Americans, just watched a very sad doc on the Death of Detroit. If you guys have stuck with developing the electric car technology you would be years ahead of the competitors. Now it seems China is taking over.
“The ‘Build Your Dream’ corporation, or BYD, is producing a car which runs up to 100 kilometres on a fully charged battery from a household power outlet.
It’s already got the backing of billionaire philanthropist Warren Buffett, who’s paid $US230 million for a nine per cent stake in the company.”
It’s a true tragedy for American automotive workers.
I think this was a really well made documentay. I love klick-n-klack. They illuded to it, but the big lesson is that these things cannot be done by BS and bullying. It needs to be market driven & it needs to be the will of the people. We are a free country & if you want it done you have to convince the people. No goverment program can make a move this dramatic, it has to be the unstoppble force of the invisible hand of capitolism … yes, evil capitolism is the only force great enough to make this happen.
A market driven solution is the only one that will work in the end.
To DJ’s comment – In the case of Americans, the ignorance of environmental issues and the fact that GM and the others are lying saying, ehhh, the technology really isn’t there yet is complete BS, so yes the government must step in. The consumers are basing their decisions on lies. If it weren’t true, the EV1 would have spread like the Prius is spreading now. I see so many people trying to do their part by buying THAT when if given the choice, They’d have done better, Bought an EV .
GM saying the battery technology isn’t available for another 7 years is comical. GM bought a fantastic new battery company and shut it down. Purely to squash the new technology so they could go on selling the same ole **** to us. GM got 65 billion Bailout, this year they are making a slight improvement financially. It’s not from sales. It’s from SERVICE. They dont want us to have a maintenance free car! The EV1 was terrific as is. it had lead acid batteries and all people who leased it wanted to buy it !
To Vlatko
Guy, this site is wild, for years i searched for docs the old way of googling stuff. Well anyways I’ve been reading comments from you and other regulars, and you people are seriously good people…
Well anyways I’m 32 and from Canada, trying to figure out how to build a magnetic motor, and have watched anything to do with Tesla and his work, you do have some here.
Long story short, I met people at li-ion Motors who are trying there hand at electric cars which is good, I presented them with the idea and they know about it, but it was like looking at a deer stuck in the head lights of a car.
I live in Calgary Canada, HQ’s for all the oil company’s in my country, (I find it scary here, I’m from Toronto) the streets are nearly paved in gold here and this idea of the magnetic motor needs to be more promoted. I’m trying to build something, youtube is a joke when it comes to showing the every day man how to build it.
CAN YOU HELP ME GUY….!!!!
and those other guys like connie, Hate machine, Achems Razor
Thanx