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A New Lease On Internal Combustion
Somnus suggests we check out the latest issue of MIT's Technology Review, where researchers describe how they can dramatically boost engine output and efficiency by preventing pre-ignition, or "knock." How they do it: "Both turbocharging and direct injection are preexisting technologies, and neither looks particularly impressive... by combining them, and augmenting them with a novel way to use a small amount of ethanol, Cohn and his colleagues have created a design that they believe could triple the power of a test engine."
This sounds an awful lot like a modern diesel engine. Modern diesels are turbocharged and use common-rail injection to achieve insane pressures at the injector heads (for really fine atomisation of the fuel), which directly inject into the cylinder. I believe the newer engines even stagger the injection during the compression and combustion cycles too to achieve more power and cleaner burning.
(NB: I'm not a revhead so I might be talking shit)
and 90% of cars should be much smaller,
Americans would never accept that. You might as well just say "and fairy princesses should fly down from candyland and give us all ponies to ride."
I think a more realistic possibility is that vehicles will just get much lighter. As an example, if Boeing can make the Dreamliner out of carbon fibre, perhaps it's not that long before we start seing reasonably priced, mass-produced carbon fibre car bodies. There's also reasonably good odds of significant price reduction in titanium and titanium alloys, and aluminium use is becoming more widespread in the automotive industry.
My ideal "dream" situation? A "grid" transportation system, in which vehicles are networked together without any humans behind the wheel (except "offroad"). electric vehicles which get their power from the road (standing wave transmission, perhaps). Autoconvoying and optimized speeds to greatly reduce traffic, increase road capacity, and reduce wind resistance. With vehicles much lighter from being pure-electric without need for even carrying the power source, high speed "bulletways" with coils of wire embedded in them, so that vehicles with halbach arrays (magnetic arrays with highly lopsided fields -- near double-strength on one side, near zero on the other) can employ "Inductrac" style maglev, eliminating rolling losses and having very little maglev losses at high speeds.
* Greatly reduced wind resistance and no rolling losses.
* Still your own, personal vehicle (the profiles would likely be a bit different from present day for optimal convoying, though)
* Never having to drive. Play, sleep, work, chat, whatever during the trip.
* Less need for roads eating up cityspace
* Less traffic
* Much faster travel, to the degree that airlines would be needed much less often.
* Much less energy use
* Independent of oil.
* No need to even be in your vehicle while it's moving -- automated delivery, automated pickup of your kids or groceries (if the store will load for you), etc.
* The great economic benefits of travel being automated and fast.
* Much less space used up downtown for parking, as vehicles can drive themselves to and from less convenient parking without you.
* No speeding tickets
* Very few accidents (no human error, no drunk driving, etc)
The benefits go on, and on, and on. Unfortunately, we have all of our existing infrastructure to deal with. Thankfully, it can be moved towards in stages. First hybrids, then plugin hybrids, then electrics, then grid-power electrics. First radar-assisted braking (like we have now), then wireless transponders to assist traffic, then increasing wireless information exchange and planning. Once vehicles are light enough, all-electric, and are designed for high-speeds with automated operation, inductrac-style maglev becomes realistic for long stretches.
Assuming ethanol comes from murdered children and the hydrogen from magic, hydrogen saves 132% more lives than ethanol.
I'm not sure I'd put that in the "benefit" column. I enjoy driving. What I fear most when people start talking about future transportation technology is that almost everybody assumes that driving is a chore and nobody should have to do it anymore. While it would be great to get the people who don't like driving off the road (the people who eat, read, do their makeup, change clothes, etc all while driving), if the solution involves removing my own ability to drive then I'm against it.
Note that I didn't say anything about what I would drive. Electric, hybrid, magnetic, petrol, whatever, I'm fine with it as long as I'm allowed to stay in control of my personal vehicle.