The need to preserve natural resources ant to reduce pollution of the environment has led car manufactures to seek alternatives to standard petrol and diesel combustion engines. Gas turbine, battery, and solar powered engines have been advanced as possible solutions. Currently the motor industry is investigating two additional alternatives: petrol–electric hybrids and fuel cells.

Steam engine technology was already sophisticated after a century of powering

railway locomotives. Simple to build and operate; steam engines were easily adaptable for locomotive use. improvements in the design of internal combustion engines in the early 1000’s persuaded the industrialist Henry For to adopt petrol –fuelled piston engines for his highly successful Ford model T, which he began mass producing before the outbreak of World War I. this marked the decline of steam car, which were last made in the 1930’s.

The next significant challenge to petrol and diesel fuelled piston engines came from gas turbine engines, which were tested for use in cars by the USA and Britain in the 1950’s and the 1960’s.a derivation of the jet engine, these engines used a power turbine to turn the vehicle’s wheels rather than provide thrust directly from exhaust gases. Gas turbine engines have survived as electricity generating units in airplanes and trains and use to power some Lorries, hips and locomotives. Although gas turbine technology has been shelved, many experts believe the gas turbine electric hybrid car should provide a fuel efficient means of transport.

Electric motors have powered vehicles of various types for over a century. The two major problems with electric motors are their inefficiency and the need for heavy batteries. Short operating range, low speeds, and long charging periods make them impracticable for many applications. Future advances in battery design should provide economies in both cost and weight that could make family electric cars viable proposition. Pollution is created indirectly by the power stations that generate the electricity to charge their batteries.

In a bid to create “pollution free” cars that are cheap to run, prototypes of solar powered vehicles have been in development for decades. The major problem with solar cells is that each cell can only produce a small amount of electricity, so hundreds of cells are generated are used to produce enough power.

A new type of car is the duel –fuel, petrol electric hybrid. A high efficiency petrol engine drives the car and also drives generator that recharges batteries carried on board. These cars are designed to use the petrol engine in urban environment giving them the flexibility of a normal car.experimental fuel cell cars are already in operation, and mass produced fuel cell cars should be available within a few years.

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• Toyota Camry Hybrid: The Green Car

Tags: hybrid, battery, standard petrol and diesel combustion engines, Gas turbine, and solar powered engines, Steam engine, electric motors

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 11th, 2009 at 2:53 pm and is filed under Alternative cars. 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.