[Isidore]

The technical solution or the mix of technical solutions to transportation energy sources is not clear. In the late 19th century there were extrapolations of the increase in horse drawn traffic that predicted London would be 6 ft deep in manure by about 1912. Well fortunately it never happened, though I do have a photograph of the street outside Kensington Town Hall in London, Hornton Street, taken in 1903. The street is much as it is today (which is quite weird) except for the fact that it is about 4-6 inches deep in the brown stuff. What I was trying to say in my comparison between chemical fuels and electrically stored energy systems is that there is a very big intrinsic gulf which may be unbridgeable. For most uses, an electric vehicle with the one essential mod of being able to recharge in say 15 minutes would work just fine. The solution the rest of the time may or may not be something quite similar to the current car technology, though from a European perspective almost certainly a diesel. There are diesel cars now that make a Prius look very poor in terms of CO2 emissions and with catalysts their NOx emissions are also able to meet the strictest US rules. There is even a proposed design that has no engine cooling system but uses the waste heat from the engine to drive a sterling engine to run all the electrical ancillaries. Of course you still have to have/ make a source of chemical fuel. The vehicle market is changing and will return to a technological battle rather than one about styling and features we didn't know we needed and which are ultimately irrelevant. Depending on your viewpoint this is either very exciting or very scarey! Although I've always been a petrolhead, I think the days of huge numbers of chemical fuel driven vehicles in commuting traffic jams are drawing to a close just like the 6 inch deep horse manure in Hornton Street is now gone.