I’m sitting here on a warm Friday afternoon looking out of the window and can see a BP petrol station in front of me. At the present time the cost of fuel is 118.9 per litre, or for our American friends, $10.54 per gallon. Apparently it’s going down, with prices hitting 120 last week – aren’t we the lucky ones? And with this in my mind, I ponder what is going to happen to our beloved cars and is there actually an alternative to the Black Gold.
One thing that has happened as a result of the offensive rise in oil prices this year is that people are seriously looking at either reducing their fuel bill or are exploring an alternative method to fuel their cars. From keeping their windows wound up, to taking off their roof racks, people are going to rather half-hearted attempts to reduce their bill.
There is, however another minority of people who are trying to go the other way and seek alternative fuels. Apart from the mad stories you’ve heard in the press about rubbish and cheese powering your cars, there are only really a handful of viable options:
Hybrid
The cop-out of the big four, and a favourite amongst most of the alternative lifestylers and movie stars. The Hybird is a car that uses a petrol engine as normal but powers a big old electric motor as well. The theory being that if you’re travelling at under a certain speed (or keep stopping/starting) your electric motor will kick in and stop polluting and save on fuel. Problems? Well, it still uses petrol to keep running and if you commute on a motorway – you won’t have the benefits, just suffer with a gutless petrol engine.
Electricity
The holy grail for car users in this electric utopia – they can use a car and not pollute at all. The energy would be good, the cars will be silent and you’d be able to drive 500 miles at 80mph between fill-ups charges and it’ll take two minutes to plug in your car, then ping! All done. The reality today is somewhat different. The cars are slow and incredibly heavy. I’m talk tonnes of weight.
They have minimal range and take ages to charge up. Conservative estimates put the amount of time we’d get viable electric cars running at acceptable levels between 30 to 50 years. And, where exactly would we get the electricity from? Coal burning factories, or if you’re lucky – clean and safe Nuclear Power Stations.
Hydrogen
This is more like it – Hydrogen Cars. These cars, championed by Honda no less, these cars use a liquid fuel (water) to power their cars. The end result? You get a car comparable to what we get now in terms of performance with the only waste product being water moisture. However, it’s an expensive manufacturing process to say the least. In terms of cost to produce just the fuel cell, you’re looking at £40 per KW; so for a 100KW/134BHP car it’ll cost £4,000 for the cell only. Then you’ve got the hydrogen freezing in the cold and the cells being damaged very easily. Honda have a car in production now, but it costs $900,000 brand new. (So that’ll be £2,500 on the second hand car market then?)
Cooking Oil
This has been a favorite for Diesel drivers over the past decade or so. It’s a cheap alternative to oil. Clean too and leaves your car smelling like a chip shop – so it could be the perfect fuel. However, with everything in life there’s a down side. Cooking oil, or vegetable oil is produced by the growing of rape seed (you know –those yellow plants next to the motorway) and then processing them into a liquid. However, the problems are that these plants are taking up farm land all over the country and the world, causing an impact on world food prices and affecting the poorest.
But what does this all mean for the Rental industry? If you ask me, I’d say a boom. From what I’ve said above, there’s not really an alternative to petrol, at least for the next generation. I reckon Hydrogen cars are the best bet, but we are at least 50 years away from looking them up in auto trader.
Car ownership in its form of today will disappear. For work, people will work from home and then meet people during the week using public transport or car hiring. For leisure, people will hire a car one way or take a train to the airport.
Driving for pleasure will disappear as the car will be a luxury item the possession of the rich and the people who are desperate to get someone on a toll-road heavy society. The car rental industry will be perfectly placed to cater for this need.
What do you think is the future for our lovely cars?
Gareth Crew currently writes for Carrentals.co.uk.
