RIP internal combustion engine

Howard Lovy — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:34:47 +0000

Back when I was a copy editor for The Detroit News a decade ago, our ultraconservative editorial page would go on red-faced tirades against then-Vice President Al Gore for his prediction of the end of the internal combustion engine. Today, The Detroit News is on its way out and, well, so is the internal combustion engine.

While the Big Three, and Michigan, are incredibly happy about the eventual arrival of lithium-ion battery manufacturing for electric hybrid vehicles, that’s already old news in Asia. According to Toyota, “fuel cells will eventually replace internal combustion engines.”

So, while GM and other U.S. automakers promote their plans for hybrid cars, what they’re talking about are hybrids between gasoline and electric motors — like the Volt. Toyota, using the technology it already honed through its best-selling Prius, is already ahead in what it views as the real future — fuel cell hybrid vehicles, or FCHVs.

It’s not a plug-in, so it does not drain the electric grid. What Toyota is talking about is the next step beyond the electric-gas hybrid transition and the final death of the internal combustion engine.

Toyota's Fuel Cell Hybrid Vehicle (FCHV) at the NAIAS 2009 (photo: Howard Lovy)

Signage about Toyota's fuel cell stack for its FCHV at the NAIAS 2009 (photo: Howard Lovy)

Howard Lovy has been a journalist for more than 20 years, and has focused on science, technology and business for most of this decade. His reporting on automotive innovation and nanotechnology has earned praise for making complex issues understandable to nearly everyone. He has worked, among other places, for The Detroit News, ClickOnDetroit.com and helped found Small Times, an Ann Arbor magazine focusing on nanotechnology and microsystems. His freelance work has
appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Wired News and Salon.com.

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RIP internal combustion engine