Natural Gas, Hydrogen, and Diesel, Oh My!

Move over, electric cars.

The press has been obsessed over electric cars for the past couple of years, especially pure electric vehicles like the Nissan Leaf, Tesla’s offerings, and General Motors’ hybrid Chevrolet Volt and its range extender engine. (The Mitsubishi i, which went on sale last year as well, has seemingly been given the short shrift from the media.) CNN Money pulled the plug, at least temporarily, over the whole shocking affair to remind folks there are other, alternatives fuel sources out there: while most may not be available to the consumer (yet), they all offer varying strengths and weaknesses over their EV brethren.

• Clean Diesel: The alternative fuel of choice among car enthusiasts, diesel engines have been around as long as gasoline. A stinking stint in American history, though, has most Americans turning up/pinching their collective noses at the fuel despite hybrid-level mileage and the available of now non-stinking “clean” diesel. On the downside, diesel engines add a not-insignificant $2,000 extra to the price tag compared to their gasoline counterparts, which is exacerbated at the pump where the fuel is consistently more expensive than premium gasoline.
• Gasoline: There’s still plenty of life in the gasoline-powered internal combustion engine and automakers are scrambling to make it better than it was before. Better. Stronger. Faster. The current flavors of the month include extensive usage of a high-tech version of fuel injection called direct injection—which blasts gasoline directly into the combustion chamber—and turbocharging, which gets more power from a smaller and more fuel efficient engine.
• Hydrogen Fuel Cells: Fuel cells combine hydrogen and oxygen together to generate electricity, which then powers the engine, with water vapor as the exhaust. It’s considered a clean, very “green” technology, until you factor the environmental impact in creating the hydrogen and oxygen in the first place. Automakers from Honda to Mercedes to Toyota all have fuel cell vehicles (FCV) but the technology is severely hampered with the lack of hydrogen-equipped refueling stations at every corner.
• Natural Gas: One of the cleanest burning fossil fuels, the U.S. is also blessed with an abundance of natural gas and thus the fuel of choice of staunch Americans wishing to rid the country of its dependence on oil from the Middle East (never mind that most of said oil actually comes from our “Great White North” neighbor). Problems come in threes, though, when using natural gas to fuel our cars: the fuel tank takes a lot of space compared to a gasoline tank; there is virtually no refueling infrastructure in the U.S.; and obtaining it by blasting rocks with water—fracking—has environmentalists asking for lots of studies.
• Plug-in Hybrid: The current golden child among automakers, plug-in hybrids alternate using the vehicles rechargeable battery to power the vehicle a certain distance before switching to the gasoline engine. The Chevrolet Volt is an extreme version of this powertrain, relying on the sedan’s battery to move the wheels up to 40 miles before the tiny gasoline engine kicks in to recharge said battery on the fly. Future plug-in hybrids like the Toyota Plug-In Prius will use similar techniques but alternate between pure battery power, gasoline engine, or both. Disadvantages include higher costs than gasoline-only counterparts and the need to recharge the battery regularly for maximum efficiency.

Automotive.com’s take: Expect all the above fuels and technologies powering future cars with fuel-efficient gasoline engines and plug-in hybrids leading the pack followed far behind by diesel and EVs. Natural gas and fuel-cell powered vehicles will remain either niche or experimental unless there’s a massive increase in the number of fueling stations.

Agree? Disagree? As always, let us know in the comments below.

Source: CNNMoney