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You're describing a genset trailer. EV DIYers talk about them all the time, but AC Propulsion no longer sells theirs. it's a hacker-only solution because of issues with emissions, high-voltage electricity at speed, power management, etc. I believe most EVs won't charge while moving.

There's also a pusher solution, enjoy this Frankenstein photo.

More likely a tow truck like the AAA EV Assistance Truck equipped with a portable fast DC charger comes to your EV and gives your car a top-up and/or a tow to the nearest public charging station.

If you want to state that a compressed cylinder of hydrogen is as safe as a non-compressed fuel tank filled with regular gasoline, go ahead.

It is absolutely safer. If the tank is ruptured (and that is a BIG if given how strong such a tank would be), the hydrogen would dissipate extremely rapidly and there would be no lingering danger of fire or explosion as with gasoline, nor any environmental damage.

For so many reasons, we should be exploring battery technology and using pure electric cars. Less moving parts, it could be lighter, etc.

It COULD be lighter - without the batteries!!! Hence, hydrogen. Ability to fill up in a minute as with gas? Hydrogen. Range of 300 miles without 1000 lbs + of storage? Also hydrogen.

The weight of the average car engine is about 600 lbs (via google). Between electric motor and battery you can only get close to that if your range sucks.

Electric cars as you say absolutely make more sense as the future of where vehicles are headed. Batteries to store electricity? They are a dead end. And if you were worried about a tank of hydrogen you should think twice about what happens to a giant set of car batteries if they get into an accident bad enough to rupture a hydrogen tank...

You stated categorically that a hydrogen tank was more dangerous than a gas tank. Well I will happily state that any accent that can release hydrogen would be WAY worse in a car full of batteries.

Why not just create a simple robotic system that exchanges batteries like propane tanks and let the facility worry about recharging them?

While a good idea in theory do you have any idea how many cars visit a gas station on an average day? You'd have to have a Target sized building to house the available spares, not to mention the HUGE amount of power that would have to run to such stations. As a result they would be very limited in location.

You also have no idea just how much space and weight we are talking about exchanging here. The Volt has done a great job in shrinking down weight to a mere 350 lbs. But look at the size of that thing!! How is even a robot going to realistically pull that out of your car and put in a new one? And remember that's the size that gives you a 30-50 mile range, which is why I mentioned 1000 lb battery packs earlier... you can't go on a road trip and expect to change out battery packs like that every 40 miles!!

Then there's the idle problem. The Chrysler turbine car had a mechanical transmission, and the engine continued to consume fuel at a substantial rate at idle. Today, a hybrid approach would be used, stopping the engine entirely once the battery was charged. The Capstone microturbine, which is a good backup power source for data centers and hospitals, has been used in this role. There's is more of a bus sized unit, 30x60x70 inches. Again, the scaling-down problem strikes.

Bus-sized unit? Come on, if you're going to use capstone as your example, maybe you should do a google search once in a while to see if they've done anything new. I mean, what year is it?

Jaguar is building another jet powered car, except this time the jet engine is used to charge a battery that will power an electric motor similar to what the Chevy Volt does. Volvo tried the same thing in the 90s with a jet powered hybrid.

Even after revising the 1985-2007 mpg estimates to make them comparable to the new 2008 mpg estimates, the 1989 Honda CRX-HF is rated at 41 city and 50 highway mpg.

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/5263.shtml

After 20 years of technological innovation, and four years of sky-rocketing fuel costs, shouldn't a new car model get at least 41/50 mpg before that car is considered to be ecologically friendly? Yet greencar.com features the 2008 Nissan Rouge (22 city/27 highway mpg) as a "Top 2008 Fuel Economy Faves." The 2008 Nissan Rouge also has a sticker price of $19,250.

http://www.greencar.com/features/fuel-economy/

Seems to me that true economy cars been pulled from the market, and replaces with the new hybrids. Major car manufacturers want us to think that 30+ mpg is something miraculous, and requires an expensive, heavy, complicated, hard-to-maintain, hybrid.

In my opinion there is more to ecological friendliness than just mpg (although the present line-up fails at even that). Hybrids have huge batteries, and disposing of those batteries is never ecologically friendly. Then there is the ecological impact of manufacturing and shipping these huge, heavy, vehicles. Furthermore, recent road tests carried out by Auto Express show that hybrids often have worse CO2 emissions than standard autos.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3958376.ece

To have a real impact on fuel consumption, and emissions, new vehicles need to be affordable. Hybrids are about the most expensive vehicles on the market. How can hybrids have a positive effect of the environment, if practically nobody can afford the beasts? Even if you can afford the steep sticker price, what about the cost of maintenance? Hybrids have two engines, and use a complicated system to charge their huge batteries. I hate to even think about the cost of maintenance and repair.

It used to be common that most fuel efficient cars also had the lowest sticker price, and lowest maintenance costs. The cars where simply smaller, lighter, and required more manual operations. With smaller, cheaper, parts, and a less complicated design, the cars were cheaper to maintain. When I bought my 1992 Ford Festiva, the 30/37 mpg rating was the least of my criteria, I was also concerned with sticker price, and maintenance costs.

Why can't we do as well now, as we did 16 to 35 years ago?

1973 Honda Civic rated 35/40 mpg
1986 VW Golf Diesel rated 31/40 mpg *
1989 Geo Metro was rated 43/51 mpg
1989 Honda CRX-HF was rated 41/50 mpg
1992 Ford Festiva rated 30/37 mpg

* I got over 50mpg driving from Florida to New Jersey, while running the air conditioner.

Related:

57 mpg? That's so 20 years ago
Want to drive a cheap car that gets eye-popping mileage? In 1987 you could - and it wasn't even a hybrid.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/12/17/autos/honda_civic_hf/index.htm

Efficiency? Think Racing Cars, Not Hybridso
A renowned racing car designer has said that car manufacturers should be looking at making cars lighter to improve efficiency, rather than adding complex drive trains.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7387432.stm

Hot Cars Best Gas Milage
Welcome to hi-mpg.org. We are automotive enthusiasts and travel aficionados who also love the environment. We appreciate both form and function, all while striving to leave future generations a legacy of clean air, scenic grandeur and a continuum of natural resources. In addition: the freedom to drive.

http://hi-mpg.org/best-cars-with-high-gas-mileage.phtml

Not exactly true. Most flex fuel vehicles are just the normal gasoline optimized engine with sufficient excess capacity in the fuel injector size and trim settings to allow the larger volume of ethanol needed for their operation. However, it is possible to optimize a flex fuel engine for ethanol fuels. Saab has done this for several years now:
http://www.greencar.com/articles/saab-9-5-biopower-gasoline-ethanol-flexfuel-vehicle.php
This Saab is a turbocharged engine and adjusts its turbo settings to provide more boost when it senses it is running on the much higher octane E-85 fuel...effectively increasing the compression ratio in the cylinder. First semester Thermodynamics tell you that the higher compression ratio offers more theoretical efficiency. This Saab puts out more horsepower and torque running on E-85 than on gas, and it gets approximately the same mileage in town and 15% better mileage on the highway.

Check out the Grizzly, the NEV, the Spyder, or the ZENN. Yes, they're all pretty strange. If we want normal cars, we buy Hondas.

VWs little fuel sippin' diesel. It looks OK and gets better mileage than most mopeds, let alone full road bikes.(it ain't fast though, but that isn't the point either) Sort of George Jetsony looking, but wind tunnels determine shape. And at least you could have heating and cooling and be in out of the sleet and rain, etc. (I used to ride bike a lot, that bad weather stuff got to be old...) And I wouldn't care if it only got half the projected mileage if it was loads cheaper to mass produce using cheaper materials,etc., it would still be medium fantastic at over 100 MPG, and rides two with some cargo. It really is sort of a transition between motorcycle and car.

Even after revising the 1985-2007 mpg estimates to make them comparable to the new 2008 mpg estimates, the 1989 Honda CRX-HF is rated at 41 city and 50 highway mpg.

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/5263.shtml

After 20 years of technological innovation, and four years of sky-rocketing fuel costs, shouldn't a new car model get at least 41/50 mpg before that car is considered to be ecologically friendly? Yet greencar.com features the 2008 Nissan Rouge (22 city/27 highway mpg) as a "Top 2008 Fuel Economy Faves." The 2008 Nissan Rouge also has a sticker price of $19,250.

http://www.greencar.com/features/fuel-economy/

Seems to me that true economy cars been pulled from the market, and replaces with the new hybrids. Major car manufacturers want us to think that 30+ mpg is something miraculous, and requires an expensive, heavy, complicated, hard-to-maintain, hybrid.

In my opinion there is more to ecological friendliness than just mpg (although the present line-up fails at even that). Hybrids have huge batteries, and disposing of those batteries is never ecologically friendly. Then there is the ecological impact of manufacturing and shipping these huge, heavy, vehicles. Furthermore, recent road tests carried out by Auto Express show that hybrids often have worse CO2 emissions than standard autos.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3958376.ece

To have a real impact on fuel consumption, and emissions, new vehicles need to be affordable. Hybrids are about the most expensive vehicles on the market. How can hybrids have a positive effect of the environment, if practically nobody can afford the beasts? Even if you can afford the steep sticker price, what about the cost of maintenance? Hybrids have two engines, and use a complicated system to charge their huge batteries. I hate to even think about the cost of maintenance and repair.

It used to be common that most fuel efficient cars also had the lowest sticker price, and lowest maintenance costs. The cars where simply smaller, lighter, and required more manual operations. With smaller, cheaper, parts, and a less complicated design, the cars were cheaper to maintain. When I bought my 1992 Ford Festiva, the 30/37 mpg rating was the least of my criteria, I was also concerned with sticker price, and maintenance costs.

Why can't we do as well now, as we did 16 to 35 years ago?

1973 Honda Civic rated 35/40 mpg
1986 VW Golf Diesel rated 31/40 mpg *
1989 Geo Metro rated 43/51 mpg
1989 Honda CRX-HF rated 41/50 mpg
1992 Ford Festiva rated 30/37 mpg

* I got over 50mpg driving from Florida to New Jersey, while running the air conditioner.

Related:

57 mpg? That's so 20 years ago
Want to drive a cheap car that gets eye-popping mileage? In 1987 you could - and it wasn't even a hybrid.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/12/17/autos/honda_civic_hf/index.htm

Efficiency? Think Racing Cars, Not Hybridso
A renowned racing car designer has said that car manufacturers should be looking at making cars lighter to improve efficiency, rather than adding complex drive trains.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7387432.stm

Hot Cars Best Gas Milage
Welcome to hi-mpg.org. We are automotive enthusiasts and travel aficionados who also love the environment. We appreciate both form and function, all while striving to leave future generations a legacy of clean air, scenic grandeur and a continuum of natural resources. In addition: the freedom to drive.
http://hi-mpg.org/best-cars-with-high-gas-mileage.phtml

Solar and wind are scams.

I'll let you try to tell it to the Dutch! Or, maybe "scam" is some Russian slang, perhaps for something very advanced, or very successful.

One will not be able to fuel a vehicle with them, or with electricity.

You might be right -- about something else.

A battery is worse to the environment than a fossil engine.

Maybe a battery is worse,but not this type of battery. It will even be made in Russia, and other articles show that the design is very viable.

You do not like Putin because he started to tax and control properly oil companies, and oil costs not 7 USD as it used to be, but times higher, but people in Russia like him exactly for this. Because they build road, schools, etc. on this money. They even started to build autobahn from Pacific ocean to the Baltic sea.

I'm glad your gas prices have dropped, but it looks to me like your petroleum industry is holding you hostage, making clear to Russians without ever saying it directly, that if your petroleum industry is not the wealthiest industry in the world, nobody else will build you roads, schools, etc., you will be poor, maybe even starve. Our oil industry tries to do the same thing. In English, the word "scam" refers to something like taxpayers giving billions of $ to Exxon in years when the oil market is a little bit challenging for it, and not getting that money back from Exxon when it's able to succeed a few years later, in a kinder market. Excuse me, I meant to say, "the kindest market any US company has ever enjoyed."

Even after revising the 1985-2007 mpg estimates to make them comparable to the new 2008 mpg estimates, the 1989 Honda CRX-HF is rated at 41 city and 50 highway mpg.

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/5263.shtml

After 20 years of technological innovation, and four years of sky-rocketing fuel costs, shouldn't a new car model get at least 41/50 mpg before that car is considered to be ecologically friendly? Yet greencar.com features the 2008 Nissan Rouge (22 city/27 highway mpg) as a "Top 2008 Fuel Economy Faves." The 2008 Nissan Rouge also has a sticker price of $19,250.

http://www.greencar.com/features/fuel-economy/

Seems to me that true economy cars been pulled from the market, and replaces with the new hybrids. Major car manufacturers want us to think that 30+ mpg is something miraculous, and requires an expensive, heavy, complicated, hard-to-maintain, hybrid.

In my opinion there is more to ecological friendliness than just mpg (although the present line-up fails at even that). Hybrids have huge batteries, and disposing of those batteries is never ecologically friendly. Then there is the ecological impact of manufacturing and shipping these huge, heavy, vehicles. Furthermore, recent road tests carried out by Auto Express show that hybrids often have worse CO2 emissions than standard autos.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3958376.ece

To have a real impact on fuel consumption, and emissions, new vehicles need to be affordable. Hybrids are about the most expensive vehicles on the market. How can hybrids have a positive effect of the environment, if practically nobody can afford the beasts? Even if you can afford the steep sticker price, what about the cost of maintenance? Hybrids have two engines, and use a complicated system to charge their huge batteries. I hate to even think about the cost of maintenance and repair.

It used to be common that most fuel efficient cars also had the lowest sticker price, and lowest maintenance costs. The cars where simply smaller, lighter, and required more manual operations. With smaller, cheaper, parts, and a less complicated design, the cars were cheaper to maintain. When I bought my 1992 Ford Festiva, the 30/37 mpg rating was the least of my criteria, I was also concerned with sticker price, and maintenance costs.

Why can't we do as well now, as we did 16 to 35 years ago?

1973 Honda Civic rated 35/40 mpg
1986 VW Golf Diesel rated 31/40 mpg *
1989 Geo Metro rated 43/51 mpg
1989 Honda CRX-HF rated 41/50 mpg
1992 Ford Festiva rated 30/37 mpg

* I got over 50mpg driving from Florida to New Jersey, while running the air conditioner.

Related:

57 mpg? That's so 20 years ago
Want to drive a cheap car that gets eye-popping mileage? In 1987 you could - and it wasn't even a hybrid.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/12/17/autos/honda_civic_hf/index.htm

Efficiency? Think Racing Cars, Not Hybridso
A renowned racing car designer has said that car manufacturers should be looking at making cars lighter to improve efficiency, rather than adding complex drive trains.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7387432.stm

Hot Cars Best Gas Milage
Welcome to hi-mpg.org. We are automotive enthusiasts and travel aficionados who also love the environment. We appreciate both form and function, all while striving to leave future generations a legacy of clean air, scenic grandeur and a continuum of natural resources. In addition: the freedom to drive.
http://hi-mpg.org/best-cars-with-high-gas-mileage.phtml

Give 'em a break. Despite the financial clusterfuck they're in right now, GM's not doing that poorly.

They're clearly fixing what is wrong. The new CTS is Car of the Year in the US (Chevy Malibu was second pick (or third ?)), the Opel Astra is one of the best selling cars in Europe, and Buick's doing very well in China. It's hard to talk about reliability, but Buick's been doing pretty well in that area. The Holden Commodore holds the top selling spot in Australia, as I could imagine (having not looked at any numbers) does Daewoo in its home market. Overall, they're having record sales and solid profits around the world, except the US. Saabs have been historically some of the safest cars around, and most recent GM cars are doing fine too.

Now that we got this out of the way... of course, most of the concepts are bound to remain just that, concepts. Just look at some of the past concepts. Still, I think Volt has a pretty good chance of being the real thing, since it's not that far fetched. The driverless car, on the other hand... probably not, but we might see some elements appearing in production vehicles. BTW, you might want to check out Green Car of the Year, you'll be surprised by the winner.

Ford in the UK had an Electric Escort Van and they had to install special electronics to prevent the drivers from lighting up the tyres. EV's have max torque from zero revs, and people always assume EVs are going to be slow (thinking "milk float" or "golf cart"), so they tend to stamp on the accelerator to get it started. Without the electrickery, the van would just spin it's tyres!

Well, the H2 Prius can get projected 100 miles (Hydrogen ICE vehicle) & reality ~80 miles to a two-H2-canister tank!

"Significantly, particulate emissions have been reduced by over 90 percent in the past 15 years." - http://www.greencar.com/index.cfm?content=features 13

"The TDI is certified to the tough minimum Tier 1 requirement - this is the stringent California standard for what is permitted from a car's tailpipe. The TDI could have been certified to even stricter requirements if not for NOX and particulate emissions, which are naturally higher in diesel engines because of their exceptional combustion efficiencies.

Volkswagen is confident these NOX levels can be lowered using new technology if the sulfur level in our nation's diesel fuel was reduced. For this very reason, Volkswagen and the other members of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers have advocated lower federal sulfur content standards in both diesel and gasoline fuels." - http://tedshelton.blogspot.com/2005/11/good-custom er-service-from-vw.html

There's plenty more out on the web. the TDI with current US petrol diesel will have a higher particulate rate per gallon spent, but a lower rate per mile due to their improved efficiency.

-Rick

This being slashdot, I expect the usual nonsense about "But electric cars just get energy from gas-burning power plants . . ." will start up immediately.

Here are some facts that I don't think anyone disputes. Absorb these, and then continue with the ranting.

Fact 1: Electric motors are more efficient than internal combustion engines. Run a gas engine at X watts for 20 minutes. Run an electric motor at X watts for 20 minutes. Afterwards, the gas engine will be hotter than the electric motor. Yes, it depends on the load, blah, blah, blah, but in the loads typically encountered by cars, the internal combustion engine loses.

Fact 2: The energy density of batteries has quadrupled in the last 10 years, mostly pushed by laptop and cellphone battery technology. Lead acid batteries have about 35 Wh/kg, while different variants of lithium batteries are in the range of 100 Wh/kg to 150 Wh/kg. Note that the cost of a lithium pack is substantially higher than that of a lead acid pack of the same capacity.

But don't worry, zealots! There are still lots of other things to debate! Does every family of four really need TWO cars with more than 100 mile range? Was Carl Pope of the Sierra Club being blackmailed when he endorsed hybrid SUV's in the latest issue of Green Car Journal? Would you cry if someone gave you a lithium-ion-powered Tzero for Christmas or other nugatory tradition? Can putting a 500 W solar panel on a car that consumes 15 kW at highway speeds make any difference? Will people ever stop suggesting that putting generators on the wheels of electric cars is a good idea? Am I really as much of a tool as I seem?

Have at it, boys!