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The future is coming fast! In case you missed it, Volvo announced (July 5th, 2017) yesterday that after the 2019 model year, it will no longer make gasoline powered automobiles. All cars, after that date, will be either hybrid or electric. Of course I am sure they will add a hydrogen power pack model when that technology is viable. Bye, bye, internal combustion engine.

Funny thing is fuel cost
is at a 12 year low...... ooops!

I see fuel cost is really a very small and short-sighted reason why internal combustion engines (ICE) are going away. First, fuel cost will change. It is a finite resource and will eventually be depleted. Second, the pollution of ICE is undeniable. It can be mitigated, but not eliminated. Then, of course, there is the noise, and stink of ICE being everywhere. Quality of life will be improved for everyone when the ICE is gone.

Pluggable hybrid and full on electrics pollute just as much sometimes more
including manufacture of batteries. All you are arguing is, where the pollution
is produced, from a tailpipe or an electric companies smokestack. ICE's are far
from becoming relegated to history.

My 1 1/2 cents - ICE's will be around for a long time but as a decreasing slice of the auto market. There are ways to produce electricity with much less or no pollution, at least locally. My college is carbon neutral - produces heat from bio mass (by products of timber industry), all newer buildings are geothermal (deep wells access heat below), a new solar array is nearly complete and a wind turbine is planned. There are parking spaces where staff & faculty can charge electric cars for free.

In cities where pollution can be a major problem parking spaces can be powered by solar cells so with a single fee you get parking and power to drive home. Some places, likely where Volvo's major markets are, are more serious about this than other places.

Recently I drove 6 hours to see a 3 hour big block modified race - a field of 800 horsepower fire breathing ICE's that shook the grandstands. I don't think I'd do that for a field of whisper quiet electric cars, but I do expect to park my Mustang beside more of them as time goes by.

Slothead

In France all new cars will be no longer gasoline/diesel from 2040.

Fortunately all my slot cars are electric!

The big question will be where and how do we generate the electrical power required? From Dams to Wind turbines the construction of all of this has a carbon footprint. There is no easy slum dunk in this.

The downside is electricity doesn't smell as good as petrol does when it's burnt.

The term "Burn out" in an automotive sense might have a new meaning.

Who let the smoke out?

This got me thinking 2 things - 1) weren't electric cars in existence before internal combustion engine cars became popular? 2) us slot car folks should be imagining powered slots on major highways with 'guides' that retract to change lanes or for exit ramps. Otherwise cars draw power from the slot and cruise without using battery power. Just set your cruise control and go.

Sounds like something Popular Science magazine would have done a feature article on a few decades ago.

Slothead