What will people be driving in the near future?

Personal vehicles have come a long way since their inception.  They are now considered by most people to be indispensable.  There is a pushback that is beginning to form againt personal vehicles, but for now, they are here to stay.  We want to have the freedom to move about to whatever corner of the city we want without having to walk.  Although this may not be the best train of thought, it is one that has and will proliferate through at least the next few decades.  If people start to change their attitude about the actual cost of oil, innovative solutions that save money in the short term and the environment in the longterm will pop up, just as they have been over the last few years.  The paradigm for my project is the College Station of today with a few major differences. 

Paradigm for my project:

1.  Oil prices have risen quite a bit at the pump and people are realizing the total cost of oil:  The cost of getting off oil is the same or less as staying on it
2.  About a quarter of the population is driving one of several versions of a plug-in electric car. (Chevy Volt) (Tesla Roadster)(Nissan Leaf)
or a technology that I will call the HCAR.  Electric sales are on the rise.
  
3. Electrical distribution is starting to be handled through local nuclear plants cuts down on tranfer losses.

4.  Technology is improving and ranges are expected to improve.






Some of the intersting facets of the project will be:

Filling Station geared toward travelleres traveling beyond the 1 charge range of their vehicles. (Home charging for all other needs)

A battery swap system that allows for a 5 minute exchange of an old battery for a fully charged one

A hydrogen filling station to fill hydrogen tanks on HFC cars

The buildings ability to change and adapt if it's technology becomes obsolete


Mainstream car companies are coming out with plug in electrics and hybrid electrics that get phenominal gas milage or dont use any gas at all. If this pattern continues, electric cars will be equivilent in cost to gasoline cars over the course of their life.  As this happens, electric cars will gain a greater share of the market.  The time period for the gas station is one that might not be too far off, and therefore it is acceptable to use current techonogies as the reality.  This will be a time period of transition: a time where the old system is crumbling and a new one is building itself.  It will be a time of oppurtunity.

In this time, if more people were driving electric plug in vehicles, this station would be a no brainer.  It is clear that the short ranges for these vehicles need to be counteracted by the ability to get off the road, quickly change the battery and then get back on the road.  In a market where 1/4 of the poplulation drove one of these cars as their primary vehicle,   There would be a need for stations like this along major trafficways.  

At the time of its construction, the station would be in high demand and make tons of money, but it is possible that someone could reinvent the battery and the ranges of these vehicles would be much greater than the distances you could cover in a day.....  this would make the battery swap obsolite.  There would still be hydrogen, but if that technology did not win out as the best new solution, the building would be a filling station that didn't fill anything up.  What then?  Do we pile it up like all the old cars that people threw away when they got their electrics? NO WAY!









http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2012/0206/Electric-cars-Plug-ins-look-for-spark-in-2012/(page)/2
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/alternative-fuels/fuel-cell.htm


http://www.hybridcars.com/electric-car