 "Photo: Stephanie Keske")
Have you ever seen a car with a crank-starter? Probably not. Your grandchildren may not remember a time when automobiles had gasoline-only engines. Texas A&M Professors Hamid Toliyat and Make McDermott said hybrid and electric vehicles will be mainstream in two decades.
"The way I look at a hybrid today is the same as I look at the engine crank being replaced by a starter at the turn of the century," Toliyat said. "Hybrid is like a bigger starter."
The Toyota Prius travels 48 miles a gallon for city driving and 45 for highway driving, according to the EPA. It is the only automobile in the United States that gains better gas mileage in the city than on the highway, The success of the Prius is largely due to economics and timing.
"In the 1990's, GM spent billions of dollars to develop the EV-1, but when gasoline was 80 cents a gallon there was no demand for hybrids," Toliyat said. "GM later scrapped the design; they developed it too early."
Toliyat said hybrid technology will become more popular in the United States and that most automobiles in production will be hybrid plug-in cars. But not all societies are investing in hybrid technology.
"The Europeans think that diesel is better than hybrid," Toliyat said. "The Japanese are pushing hybrids. Why not design diesel hybrids?"
Diesel cheaper in Europe than in the United States, said McDermott, because American refineries have not modernized.
"Diesel should be cheaper to refine than gasoline," McDermott said. "Historically, it has always been cheaper than gasoline. It just costs time and money for refineries to change."
The U.S. Army is providing much of the funding for Toliyat's electric motor and electric generator research. Toliyat said that the military spends $120 to $240 per gallon to transport fuel to war zones.
Brian Knight, a mechanical engineering graduate student and car enthusiast, said the biggest obstacle to hybrids right now is battery technology.
"Right now we are polluting more to refine lithium to put into batteries and make hybrid cars than is saved by decreased emissions in the end," he said. "I see new battery technology improving hybrids in the future."
Fully electric cars are becoming a reality. The Tesla Volt is the first fully electric car scheduled for wide-scale production.
"Electric car technology is really starting to take off, but [the new Tesla Volt electric car] takes 30 hours to fully charge on a 110-V outlet," Knight said.
Toliyat says that electric car technology has come a long way, but he is skeptical about the new Tesla Volt. "The makers claim that the battery will have a range of a few hundred miles... they claim," he said.
"It is great for A&M's future that A&M is looking at present day obstacles. I see gas prices going up and not stopping - just continuing to go up," Knight said. "There will be lots of big changes in the next ten years, it will be interesting to see what happens."
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