Future of Personal Transport: Electric Vehicles

[wolram]

The IC engine has evolved all most to its limits of mph, mpg reliability, electric vehicles are still on the horizon, where is the future in PT?

 

[Mech_Engineer]

The IC engine has evolved all most to its limits of mph, mpg reliability, electric vehicles are still on the horizon, where is the future in PT?

The future isn't in personal transport at all, it is in PUBLIC transportation. the fact is that an "inefficient" bus carrying 50 people is far more efficient than one person driving in a hybrid.

And then what about bullet trains that carry 100 or 200 people to neighboring cities at 200 MPH? Or above/below ground inner city rail.

It just isn't a practical idea to give every single person a personal transporter. The fact is that as the population of a city gets larger, the logistics of each person personally transporting themselves becomes geometrically more daunting.

What if L.A. gad all public transport instead of 85% road surface for the car each person has? it wouldn't be so sprawling, that's for sure.

 

[H_man]

In Episode 11 of the Scientific American pod-cast they talked about just that problem.

http://www.sciam.com/podcast/index.cfm?ref=rss