You don't know what moores law is do you? Every 2 years the number of transistors you can fit on a given region of silicon die doubles. This is moores law. Silicon die area is a significant factor in cost, transistor count in performance. The law roughly translates as every 2 years the performance of a computer can double for a chip costing the same size and being the same dimensions. Nothing to do with consumerism.
On Topic: Ladies and gentlemen, I present you, the future (in the form of the synopsis of an Anime series called éX-Driver) "In the distant future, people allow artificial intelligence (AI) to control their cars. But like all futuristic technology, AI is subject to dangerous malfunction. Enter the éX-Drivers, a team who use pre-AI cars to track down the rogue vehicles. This high-speed anime series based on Kusuke Fujishima's manga follows the adventures of Lorna and Lisa, two Japanese éX-Drivers who've raised the Blade Runner-like job to a full-throttle art form" Sounds awfully familiar.....
In my opinion, the future of the automobile has very little to do with when we are or aren't running out of oil or with global warming (which was originally global cooling and is now being rebranded as "climate change" so natural variances in earth's climate can be blamed on human activity no matter which way the trend shifts). It's all politics. The powers that be, whatever form they may take in this case, have it out for the internal combustion engine simply because it's a big hunk of freedom in aluminum and cast iron. "They" want us to drive doofy-looking, impractical electric cars whether there's any good reason to or not, for all the reasons people object to them for. Limited range and long recharge times? All the better to restrict long-distance travel without raising suspicion. Battery life tyrannosaurus rekt by hard acceleration? Dissidents won't be able to flee far. No engine noise? Less chance of acute adrenalin poisoning, promoting road safety via boredom! There is one hope still remaining for the internal combustion engine, but I won't say what it is because I hope to profit by it someday. As for self-driving cars, I still think traction control means using the far right & far left pedals in synchrony, so you can guess what I think of them.
Consider the NRA's reaction if the US Government proposed a bill that would outlaw, or otherwise strip people of what makes gun ownership great (whatever that may be). This is one organisation in one country. Now consider that the car has been a symbol of freedom and independence for over 200 years all over the world. Imagine the brouhaha (and in this day and age, slacktivism) in response to any action, political or otherwise, that would drastically change the car and personal transportation as we know it. I'm pretty confident cars will remain as they are for a long, long time.
I completely respect and will probably use an autonomous automobile as a daily driver. However if I actually want to "arrive" somewhere that's why you have another car or if you want to go for a drive on fun roads. My only concern with autonomous cars is despite being never having an accident in over 500,000 miles traveled there is one situation that Top Gear (22.6 "the news") brought up that could be problematic. That situation is if someone in a regular drive vehicle is coming straight for you. Will your (autonomous) car avoid that collision? What if the only option for a place to go is a sidewalk with lots of people, will the car still go there or will you just have to get in the crash?
spark ignition alternative fueling was solved long before compression ignition was. e85, about 85% ethanol. Flex fuel cars will run on this. Fuel here in UK already has about 5-10% ethanol content. It's a less efficient fuel than gasoline but its renewable.
It also spews more pollution and the ethanol eats things. I'm not sure about its effects on power output. Not to mention, it spikes prices of food both for humans and the animals we eat by redirecting corn from the food supply to the fuel supply, which is bad news for developing nations where the people are barely hanging on by their fingernails most of the time anyway. I know the turbo guys love it for some reason, but for the rest of us... next please!
Ok, I am no chemist but from my understanding, burning ethanol produces less pollution than gasoline, at least as far as complete combustion is concerned (which doesn't really occur in engines much...). I do believe it releases less energy when burnt though, but the ethanol eating through things is only really a concern on older cars. The more major problem is that ethanol loves to absorb water. Doesn't the US pay farmers to not grow corn? I'm sure if there was a dire need for our glorious corn we could pump out enough that we could all sleep on cornbread mattresses and shower in moonshine.
Ethanol eating seals is kinda 50:50. It eats the seals in a gasoline engine because those seals were not designed for ethanol exposure. Nor does it have to be purely sourced from corn. But hey. If you'd rather sit in a car with an engine having a displacement far higher than it needs to be just to burn our dwindling fuel reserves rather than go ahead and find alternatives, thats upto you.
