Originally introduced as the AUTOnomy concept vehicle in 2003, the GM Hy-Wire is an ambidextrous Hyrdrogen powered car in which the driver can sit on either the right or the left side of cabin with the wheel mounted on a motorized track. While it is not likely to enter production in its current state it boasts some interesting innovations that may see their way into the green cars of the future. The Hy-Wire gets its motive power from a process in which the water in its storage tank is ionized to the point that it enters an energetic reaction, with positive and negative ions repelling each other and generating electricity to power an electric motor. The draw of this design as opposed to a traditional electric car relying on a lead acid or solid state battery is that it can be refuelled on the go rather than charged overnight as the current generation of electric cars has to be. Aside from its revolutionary hydrogen drive system, the Hy-Wire boasts an entirely new concept inc car design- the removable chassis. The car operates on a drive-by-wire system, much like a commercial airliner or a fighter jet, so there's no need for a steering column or traditional drivetrain and the majority of the vehicle's mass is below the passenger compartment, greatly reducing the change of a rollover. The entire cabin of the Hy-Wire can be removed and swapped for a different one (i.e. you could have a sports coupe one day and a station wagon the next.)It remains to be seen which technology will be dominant in transportation 10 or even 20 years down the road, but expect hyrdrogen cars to be part of the picture.
Chemical engineers in North Dakota have successfully produced a jet fuel alternative derived entirely from plant oil. Previous attempts at manufacturing bio-fuel for aircraft had been derailed by plant oil's characteristically high freezing temperature and low energy content compared to kerosene, but this newest iteration boasts a freezing point of -52.6 degrees fahrenheit and a mass and energy output virtually identical to the kerosene fuel. The engineers involved have stated that the refining process they've invented would be comparable in cost to petroleum refining or perhaps cheaper because volatile substances like sulfur are not part of the equation. While switching the nation's fleet of military and civilian jet aircraft to bio-fuel would substantially reduce our dependence on foreign oil, the most promising news about this process is that it can be used to produce an equivalent of any petroleum product, not just jet fuel. What this means is that a few short years from now we could be fueling our cars on a mixture of canola oil, coconut, and soy beans (the three major components of the new fuel) without the need for costly conversion kits or any substantial change to the Nation's transportation infrastructure. The process isn't perfect- because large quantities of rapeseed, soy and coconut need to be grown and harvested to produce the fuel its production is not carbon neutral, but it would go a long way towards weening us off foreign oil and oil in general.