The future of the Internal Combustion Engine?

[DunkM]

Hey everyone,

I am in a Senior Design project where we are researching advanced vehicle technologies. The goal of the project is to research current trending technologies and theorizing what vehicle technology will look like in the year 2060. Part of this project will focus on the drivetrain and electric vehicles. Therefore, I was interested in how all of you guys feel about new drivetrain technologies, especially regarding the effects it has on us upgrading kind of folks. So I'm asking all of you to quickly respond to these few questions.


1. Where do you see internal combustion and hybrid technology going in the future (year 2060)?

2. Where do you see electric/battery technologies going in the future (year 2060)?

3. Are you interested in driving and modding these technologies?

4. Are you interested in autonomous vehicles?

5. Do you have any other comments you would like to make on this topic?

Thanks,
Duncan

[montaillou]

1.) yes

2.) sure

3.) maybe

4.) I don't swing from that side of the plate.

5.) Just what is the airspeed of an unladen European swallow?

[pizzaman09]

1) Internal combustion engines will be a dieing breed, only seen as old tech that can't be developed to the power levels or efficiency levels of the power units that will be available in 2060.

2) Electric powered vehicles will be well developed and have batteries that will provide ample charge to go the distances people want to drive them. Charging vehicles might be done wirelessly. I hope that there isn't a future in fuel cells as it is just a way to make electric technology function like the petrol powered cars we are use today. Plus the processes to create hydrogen are rather inefficient. Hopefully the grid will be up to the task of electrics.

3) I am certainly interested in driving electric cars, most of the ones that I have driven so far have been pretty impressive. I am sure that they will only get better. I am willing to bet just because gas engines die off that modding will not die off. People will switch to doing motor swaps as well as controller mods or swaps as well as getting higher discharge capable batteries.

4) I have no interest in Autonomous vehicles as replacements for daily transportation. There is no fun in just riding in a transport vessel. I also have an insane fear of the autonomous features screwing up.

5) The automotive world is always evolving and improving, however if you look at all of the technology in todays cars, aside from the computer operated stuff, most of the technology used in cars has been around for a very long time.


Good luck on your senior design project. My Mechanical Engineering senior design project was to design and build a rotary valve head to replace the poppet valve train on a Briggs and Stratton engine. Two years out of school I have now built a 3rd iteration of the rotary valve engine and it works very well.

[MeNoo]

Hey everyone,

1. Where do you see internal combustion and hybrid technology going in the future (year 2060)?

2. Where do you see electric/battery technologies going in the future (year 2060)?

3. Are you interested in driving and modding these technologies?

4. Are you interested in autonomous vehicles?

5. Do you have any other comments you would like to make on this topic?

1. Enthusiast/Collectors only...
2. Skyrocketing
3. Meh.
4. Meh.
5. The low/no emissions vehicles will make more space for us to pollute.

[MarshallStax]

1. Collectors and enthusiasts will have ICE vehicles; the average vehicle owner will not. Hybrids will be extinct.

2. Almost all cars will be fully electric. Battery technologies will be mature enough that cars don't need to be charged as often, charging will be faster. All parking spots will have charging stations that probably won't be free.

3. Do you mean performance modifications? Sure, why not? :-)

4. Yes and no. I like to think I'll be one of the enthusiasts who will own an old ICE car with those steering wheel and pedal apparatuses, but also own an autonomous vehicle for commuting. Gas should be fairly cheap as demand bottoms out.

5. It can't happen soon enough for me.

[Critter7r]

1. The ICE isn't going anywhere, neither at the poles, nor in automotive.

unless ...

2. battery tech needs a shot in the arm. If batteries make a similar leap in tech as ICEs did in the last 45 years, then

3. yes, I'd be interested in driving one.

4. not in their current state

5. It really doesn't matter. There will be vehicles, there will be pollution, there will be people getting from one place to another, somehow.

[sullypants1]

Runnng an ICE will be taboo in 2060. Enthusiast will be seen as killing the planet and as outside the mainstream; fringe (more so than now) like smoking in 2015. Gasoline sales tax or ICE tax will be cost prohibitive for all but the the richest.

There are already batteries that can offer the same energy/ mass as gasoline/ quick charge/ etc. they just aren't stable enough to come out of their labs at -150 F.

At the rate of population growth, solitary transportation will also be reserved for the well off. Huge leaps and bounds will be made in the area of public transportation/ automation. Look at the tesla guy; Airtrain or w/e. efficiency has to increase.

All of this makes me quite sad; but it's comming and I'll just have to deal with it.

[Parts]

Everyone seems to think Internal Combustion Engines will disappear. They're not going to, probably ever for the rest of human history. They're nowhere near the end of their development. They make plenty of power for their comparitive size and weight, materials aren't expensive, and the design is HUGELY scalable and adaptable.

Electric cars aren't a fad, they will continue to develop and proliferate, but ICEs aren't going anywhere for a very, very long time. Future designs may not resemble today's of course, but they'll be around.

[m3bs]

I'll take a contrary position. Where do you think all of the electricity is going to come from? Nobody wants nukes anymore, and coal is taboo. Solar? We have natural gas, but what about the rest of the world? I can see electrics for urban use, but I think the ICE has a long future. For sure as long as I'm around.

As for autonomous cars, I wouldn't want one myself, but when I look around at what many drivers are doing INSTEAD of actually driving their cars, I say it probably needs to happen ASAP.

[Silverdogz]

My bet is on hydrogen, the infrastructure for distributing it is already there: gas stations. Plus, the ICE is still a very efficient design and will no doubt have improved over time. While electric cars will continue to be improved.