The Future of Hybrid Cars
The future of hybrid cars is often seen as a temporary phase towards 100% electric and fuel cell cars.
The future of hybrid cars is also tied to the price of oil, which is seen by many to increase dramatically over the next decade or so, as existing oil supplies dwindle. Because most cars run on gasoline, this expected oil shortage will promote technologies that use less and less oil as part of their set up. In addition, due to global warming, there is a movement towards forms of energy that are less polluting than how you power automobiles with gasoline. A dramatic step towards lowering the dependency on oil is to use a hybrid engine, which runs partly on electricity, partly on oil. However, because the ultimate aim of this movement, in the face of dwindling supplies of oil, is to have cars that use zero gasoline, the hybrid set up where gasoline is part of the power source, is only seen as a temporary step towards a set up where oil plays no part. However, having no gasoline engine in cars may not be the end of hybrid engines, only the end of the set up that uses gasoline motor. There are other types of set ups, where there are two other types of engines beside gasoline motors. For example, a future set up could be a hydrogen/electric hybrid car, or a fuel cell car that also has an electric engine. The estimates as to how long the gasoline-electric combination is likely to be around vary greatly, and many see the peak at and the demise for hybrids starting around 2020, when fuel cell cars are expected to make a mass market debut and other types of alternative fuel automobiles, including all electric cars, have several rounds of development behind them, making them more cost effective and attractive to buyers.
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