Nobody has ever been able to correctly predict the price of oil 3 months out, let alone 3 or 30 years.

However, technology does have a habit of being "just around the corner" for ages then, when it arrives, it arrives with a far faster rush anyone can predict.

If electric cars suddenly make a break through and start following some computer laws of speed of development then a 250 miles range will very quickly become a 750 mile range and a £50000 car a £25000 one. This could happen in 5 years or 15.

Of course, you still have to generate that power, but I don't think you can assume the electric cars of 2026 will be much like those of 2016 just like today's iPhone 6S is a bit ahead of a iPhone Mk 1.

Now, the oil is going to be left in the ground because nobody will want it

Just like coal.

Even if vehicles use electric or hydrogen motors, power from fossil fuels, nuclear or renewables must be used to make all the electricity needed. The key vehicle energy-saving development is regenerative braking and the jury is still out whether its mass market will be mechanical or electrical.

Most humans live in sunnier climes than ours. If my small array of 14 solar panels can produce 3000KwH per annum north of the 50th parallel (it even produced >1KwH yesterday!) the future is surely with roofs made of these plus local community or even domestic battery pile storage units. It will be the norm to plug your car into the system but it will probably still have a tiny fuel engine so it doesn't run out. Meanwhile, I shall continue to enjoy my oil-fired central heating and gas guzzler subsidised by the initially generous FiT scheme!

The traditional car manufacturing culture is slow, incremental changes and has been for 100 years.

However, I wonder if this is about to change. There are new people and companies looking at the car business with an attitude which is far more from the technology industry where major changes every 2-3 years are very common. I can't see Google making the same car for 7 years.

You can buy, very fast, electric cars with 250 mile range for £60000. If the technology starts to follow "Moore's Law" then we could very quickly be at 500 miles and £30000 and then 750 miles and £20000. If it happens, petrol and diesel cars will quickly begin to look a bit rubbish.

Technology and legislation will ensure that the next 20 years will almost certainly see more changes to the car than in the last 100.

Kodak thought it would take 20 years for anyone to make a digital SLR which could come close to their 35mm cameras they'd been happily making for 100 years and they were bankrupt in 5 years with zero market. It can happen.

Edited by pd on 24/12/2015 at 11:35

The issue with cars is twofold:

1.A new technology takes at least 15 years from introduction to full acceptance (see Toyota Prius the first successful hybrid)

I think that will become increasingly outdated. Old sods (like myself) may be a bit conservative when it comes to cars but the under 25's who are the future car buyers are a lot less resistive. They care far more about what operating system it runs than what powers it and have been used to technology changing at a rapid pace all their lives.

Every single established industry which has gone through a revolution never thinks it will happen because it has never happened before.

Is it about to happen to the car? I'm not really sure, but there are some new and very revolutionary thinking players coming to the market and I don't think it can be ruled out.

Fair point Rob, and to be honest i don't undertand why electric cars are so expensive, the really expensive parts of the normal car, engine and gearbox are missing and replaced by set of larger than normal rechargeables and an electric motor, they should be cheap as chips.

Regarding the new lithium/air battery. The research bods seem to have a time code. 5 Years seems to mean Perhaps, 10 years seems to mean Unlikely.

Although with the amouut of effort being exerted in China on research into ways of reducing atmospheric pollution I don't like to bet.

Was it less than 150 years ago that someone said that the streets would be knee deep in manure if something wasn't done ? (For the younger readers who've never seen it, manure = horse poo. A number of years ago one of my work-mates worked on a project to turn chicken manure into fuel gas. That can be used to fuel cars; and the market for chicken meat in the third world is growing exponentially. The waste products have to be got rid of, why not profitably.