Why is everyone ignoring Natural Gas ?
Are you aware about new ideas in NG tech. Like an exhaust shunt back into the inlet manifold that substantially reduces CO2 and some how gets to exhaust hydrogen ? ( still researching this issue , I have acquired a Toyota Corolla engine to experiment)
2CV Citroen type cars are reqd or maybe include VW Beetle , reduce the weight further , what I am illustrating , is a whole new view of what a car pre 20/20 should be like . Basic without all the bling and weight.
NG can be compressed , it's called CNG , a small compressor in your carport hooked into your NG house supply simply tops up your NG Car overnight ......these are every where in USA , pretty groovie eh ! They even have car parks where you simply drive in and plug in .
The yanks need Alcohol fuels we don't their propensity to fight everybody on the Globe dictates this you can't run a jet plane on NG or Hydrogen . When accessing Alcohol remember all the machinery reqd. to grow the Corn to transport it plus processing big carbon footprint

shazbaz, don't forget that the machinery used to grow and transport the corn can run on biofuels too.

Hi ShazGaz,

Switching to natural gas is like switching cigarettes, the end is the same.

Besides, NG is peaking. There have been manly posts NG depletion on Theoildrum.com. Do an Internet search of natural gas depletion and peak natural gas with the oil drum.

Despite the philosophical arguments, it still takes more energy to actually build a Toyota Prius than it would save during its lifetime, compared to a conventional vehicle - much like the energy-saving light bulb.

Add the additional mineral resources needed to provide it's more exotic power plant and it becomes even less attractive as an environmentally friendly alternative.

At this stage, it's more a feel-good exercise than a long term solution.

Perhaps a change in lifestyle and more use of public transport systems would be a better option, if not by choice then by necessity.

Pure electric vehicles are *almost* there. The current bailout of automakers in the US might get the investment required to make them ready for market.
Battery tech has come a long way and FePo4 Lithium Polymer batteries may well be the killer tech once scaled up. These batteries have great charge density and most importantly, don't blow up.
Electric motors can have efficiencies approaching 90%. This makes up for the fact that batteries energy density is much lower than liquid combustables. So although you will never carry around as many KWh in a battery for the same weight, nor will you need to. In addition things like regenerative braking can extend the available energy.
Electric cars can be built using *much* less moving parts and sophisticated materials. With modern electronics and brushless motors, the only moving parts are bearings, and possibly CV joints and steering linkages. (drive by wire may minimise even these). The result is much lighter and more efficient in energy use, and ultimately cheaper to make.
The biggest bugbear of course is the ultimate energy source. Not much point replacing petrol with coal.
This problem can be solved by small scale solar, starting with the cars roof and the home roof, extending to large scale solar thermal in our plentiful desserts. If running power across the desert seems expensive...How about shipping oil from Russia or the middle east? We have been fooled into thinking that the oil economy is the easiest option. New tech means that the next few decades will be driven by a different economy. Given that Australia must rediscover wealth creation in its economy post financial crisis (No, "financial services" jobs will not keep us prosperous. Shuffling bits in a computer was never wealth creation, and never will be), then the shift to the new tech is actually a blessing.
Now we need some real leadership.

Some interesting comments. I share ozandy’s view that electric cars are much nearer to replacing fossil fuelled vehicles than many people realise and note his comment that nothing is gained by replacing oil with coal.

The government target is for 20% of electricity to come from renewables by 2020, a target which does not take into account the potential of geothermal energy to meet all our energy needs according to Geodynamics 2007 Annual Report (page 14) available at http://www.geodynamics.com.au. This suggests that clean electricity will be increasingly available to fuel vehicles.

Forest Gumpp wonders if use of electricity would be much cheaper than fossil fuels. I read CSIRO material which indicated electricity costs would be equivalent to 25¢ per litre but can not find that particular reference. However an article in Wiki suggesting 22¢ per litre is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki.Electric_cars#Running_costs

Taswegian and others question the practicality of electric vehicles given their limited range. This points to the need to develop capacity to generate electricity on board using fuel cells or significant improvement in development of light weight, rapid charging, high density batteries. Advances are being made with both. Indications are that battery technology will get there before fuel-cells and do so within the next 3-5 years.

For those who believe such batteries are decades away, I invite their attention to development of batteries using nano-technology able to hold 10 times the charge of present day vehicle batteries. These are expected to be in commercial production by 2012.

More recent battery development made by CSIRO using ultracapacitor technology show even better promise in terms of capacity, cost and durability, though a commercial production date has not been indicated.

As electric cars become the vehicle of choice, you can bet that conversion kits to suit all makes of fossil fuelled vehicles will come on to the market, as will garages offering to install them.