Future Cars on Discovery highlights fuels of the future
Filed under: Biodiesel, Emerging Technologies, Ethanol, EV/Plug-in, Hybrid, Hydrogen, Solar
I was pretty excited about the show "Future Cars" on Discovery show when I found out about it. And, thankfully, I have not been disappointed. I wrote about the show before it actually started, and we are now three weeks into the series. The last episode, number three, is of particular interest to us at AutoblogGreen, because it covered the types of fuels that we are likely to see in the coming years. All of the usual suspects were included: ethanol, biodiesel, hybrids, pure electrics, hydrogen, solar and even compressed air were all considered, and got roughly equal coverage. Left off the list were biobutanol or any of the other bioalcohol-based fuels.
Linton, a frequent poster on Hugg, has posted his summary of each episode, and here is a link to his coverage of the third. I also noticed that the show incorrectly referred to the air-powered car as perpetual motion. The official website of the show, which can be found here, has more information on the interns at GM that we originally posted about.
As the banner at the top of this posting shows, the last part of this four-part series will be shown next Wednesday, the 28th of February, at 8pm on Discovery Channel. The show will be replayed later that night as well.
EDIT: After rewatching the episodes of Future Car, I was a bit alarmed at the inaccuracies of their depictions of ethanol, biodiesel and air. Ethanol was presented as merely a form of fuel derived from corn. As we all know, corn is one of the worst foodstocks to use for ethanol production. Also, biodiesel was almost completely describes as vegetable oil. In fact, that point was hammered! "ON VEGETABLE OIL" was shown on title screens something like three times. I already mentioned the fact that they described the compressed air car as perpetual power, which is not the case. Anyway, what damage will be done to each industry? Probably not too much... but miseducation is never a good thing.
Related:
- Starting Feb. 7th - Future Cars on Discovery Channel
- GM and Discovery Channel offer design process of fuel-cell vehicles in new show
- Futurecar report on the GM "Skateboard" car on YouTube
[Source: Discovery Channel]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-23-2007 @ 11:27AM
Tony Belding said...
From my own viewings of the show, as well as the other comments I've seen, you may be the only person who wasn't disappointed with it. The many inaccuracies, the uncritically accepted and presented claims, and the muddled explanations all added up to a show aimed at 12 year olds. Or possibly produced by 12 year olds. I know it's possible to do far, far better.
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2-23-2007 @ 12:28PM
Sky King said...
You forgot to include the link to Linton's summary.
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2-23-2007 @ 1:50PM
Howard Lee Harkness said...
The latest entry in the Tesla Motors Blog (http://www.teslamotors.com/blog1/index.php?p=51&js_enabled=1) by Jon Mittelhauser does an excellent job of explaining why neither ethanol nor hydrogen are "Fuels of the Future".
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2-23-2007 @ 6:54PM
Joseph said...
The show "future cars" was okay...I was surprised by how they literally said that hydrogen cars are better than electric cars. They pretty much, flat out, said that or insinuated that. If you look at the facts, hydrogen is inefficient(compared to electric cars) expensive, and decades away from becoming practical. I can smell oil companies...
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2-23-2007 @ 8:38PM
Unidentified creature said...
They said prepetual motion in reference to air powered cars in that they were suggesting that an electric compressor could be included onboard the air car which could be powered by compressed air. Unless I'm gravely mistaken, that is indeed prepetual motion.
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2-23-2007 @ 9:43PM
Jeremy Korzeniewski said...
Clarification - I was very disapointed in the inaccuracies of the show, but was very excited to see the vehicles and their designers. It is especially problematic if this is the first or only information that people get on the topic. However, I still enjoyed watching it! Seeing the Tesla, Opel Speedster, Venturi and others on TV was gratifying, as they are what we write all about on this site.
Howard - I read the Tesla blog regularly, and I read the post you linked to. It is a good post, but I am a little wary about not including "car guys" into his equation. There are certain people who will buy the car solely for its performance, then there are others who will consider its electric "heart" soleless and ungratifying. Not me! But, I have many car friends who already have decided that they would not want it for that reason. I think it will be a big success though, and start to prove those people wrong in the long term.
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2-24-2007 @ 1:55PM
KLEI said...
Overall, I thought that the show was O.K. I especially enjoyed the part about electrics and the roadster. I love the turbine-like sound that that car makes! However, I was very dissapointed with its section on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. They only mentioned once that hydrogen can come from natural gas and stated that it comes from water. The reality is that more than 80% of our hydrogen comes from natural gas steam reformation (a method that vents a large amount of Co2 into the atmosphere), and only 4% comes from the electrolysis of water, a process that is very costly and innefficent. I most was appauled when, trying to find benefits for a hydrogen car versus and electric car, they flatout said that it takes a full night to charge an electric car. The Tesla fully charges in 3-4 hours and you can get an 85 % charge over lunch. Then, I completely lost my respect for this seiries when they said that perpetual motion was possible with an air car. I might watch the next episode, but probably not. I don't think that I know much about the "brain" of a car, and would not like to justify my opinion of the best "brain" technology on the innacurate data that this show seems to have a lot of.
It was cool to see the Tesla on tv :)
In all, I give it a C- (barely a pass)
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3-01-2007 @ 11:53PM
jabber_wolf said...
Yeah Im surprised by the amount of good ideas mixed in with complete and utter idiocy in this program!!
I agree the air compression bit was the most stupid thing I've heard in a long time. Why dont we just pick ourselves up by our shoulders and fly while we're at it!!
Every form of their CLEAN RUNNING CARS comes from a process that is oil or natural gas produced!
Hydrogen, even in thermal farms ( or where ever) are in NO WAY ECONONOMICAL and probably wont be for a century!
Air compression.. throw that out with the garbage.
Now we are left basically with electrical cars...
The basis of all the future cars is how EFFECIENT they will be with the use of electricity.
The creation of electricity to thus create hydrogen.. only to have it ported into a car to then have it released by fission of the molecule, is a waste, inefficient, and costs $$
Every time you do a conversion of energy ( from one form to another) you LOOSE energy!
At least with electrical cars you create electricity, and keep it that way until converted to kenetic energy.
It at least suffers from conduction... which is more efficient then conversion.
I think they should be totally biased and lean into just ELECTRICAL cars and the batteries of the future.
GM hasnt invested in battery companies like A123 and their lithium phosphate battery for good reason.
The guys that converted the prius into a 100MPG car, used that exact same battery and only increased the cost by 10-15k !!
And thats with the demand being so low for this type of battery.
If and probably WHEN GM goes all out on this technology, the cost of this technology will come down dramatically and THIS will be the paradigm shift in cars.
Everything else they are showing on Discovery is for designers and fanciful thinking.... not really utilitarian and is a waste of the show.
Ethynol ... save that for the electrical plants and not for cars.
Right now we will simply be subsidizing the FARM industry and still cause pollution because it takes alot of energy to produce that stuff.. at least with corn crops anyway.
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3-03-2007 @ 7:26PM
ron said...
looking for information and or web link on the 3 wheeled C-lean or k-lean not sure of the correct spelling which is making it hard for me to find. todays episode didnt show the name 03,03,07.
Can someone point me in the correct direction?
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3-03-2007 @ 7:29PM
Jeremy Korzeniewski said...
Ron - You may be talking about the Carver, or the Venture One. You can find information about both of these here at this site. Run a search for Venture, VentureOne and Carver from our search above. I'll get you started with this one:
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/02/17/venture-vehicles-to-design-and-build-100-mpg-three-wheeled-road/
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3-03-2007 @ 10:09PM
Ann Ostrowsky said...
It is Mar 3,2007 and I have been riveted to
this incredible show for over 4 hrs.
The info is FASCINATING. We invested in Solar
photovoltaic panels just prior to Y2K. Have found them to be worth every cent,($20,000) and
am looking forward to better ones. Can not comprehend why this sourse of power is not MANDATED, especially for any NEW Construction.
I am very environmentally concerned and my
husband is on his computers almost all the time.
Am usually a C-SPAN "junkie" Feel the oil
lobby politics are THE ENEMY for the future of
this planet.
Now watching the "FUTURE CAR" makes me feel
I hope I can live long enough to witness the
progress of the future.
Am also a retired nurse so safety is a major
issue for our family.
Now all we need to do is STOP THE WARS.
Thank you for an excellent production.
Gratefully, Ann in California
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4-27-2007 @ 6:52PM
Clarence said...
Does anyone know the name of the car that i beleive was developed in europe that had the one peice sliding canopy that was a sports car design? I think it was white in color.
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5-09-2007 @ 9:18AM
Clarence said...
Does anyone remember the car with the sliding canopy that i beleive was under development in europe? I think it was white in color, and a sports car style.
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9-23-2007 @ 3:31PM
Patrick Fennessy said...
We could really go green in local driving if we really wanted ,this was on tv a few years ago "HPEV" (human powered electic vehicle), Just think about the "bennies" better health, less congestion,cleaner air,& lower cost.
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1-16-2008 @ 2:47PM
Robert said...
I'm more interested in the US becoming free from foreign oil. I'm not a tree hugger or in a save the planet group.
Hybrid cars could obviously get the US in a postion to be free from foreign oil.
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2-14-2008 @ 7:08PM
brent said...
Please bring future vehicles to internationally famous Bonneville Salt Flats where you will be remembered longer than any place on earth! We are planning to add an endurance oval, September 17-18, 2008, for those who want to demonstrate efficiencies at www.saltflats.com
Bonneville's Alternative Fuel Event Coordinators, Brent and Kent Singleton 801-644-0903 brent@saltflats.com
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3-07-2008 @ 7:31PM
stvrob said...
Frankly, I was appalled by the producer's complete lack of understanding of thermodynamic principals. Others have already pointed out the silliest reference, the "perpetual motion" machine when they were discussing the compressed air vehicle near the end of the show, but there were dozens of other dubious statements which were equally appalling.
The show left the distinct impression that ridding our dependance on petroleum will be a relatively simple matter. The show's producer's have done a great disservice by failing to address the true magnitude of this challenge.
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