Making predictions is a dangerous business, especially if you are looking out past the immediate time horizon. Looking back at the Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazines of the '50s and '60s you might think we'd all have airborne autos by now but no such luck. Even predictions about the next 5-10 years are exceedingly difficult to get right, especially when politics and technology mix. The key to successful prophecies, as Nostradamus or any psychic will tell you, is to keep everything vague enough to be open to interpretation.
Over at Earth2Tech, they've taken a look at a handful of specific prognostications made during the first half of this decade about green transportation and compared them with where we are today. Needless to say, only one of the five predictions proved to be substantially correct. The "winner" is Toyota's prediction that hybrids would form a bridge technology to full EVs. Even with the relative success of hybrids, they still make up less than three percent of U.S. sales today. Natural gas has made little headway except in transit buses and a few other fleets. Hydrogen, of course, remains stymied by the lack of a fuel distribution network and, given California's financial difficulties, a high speed rail line there seems unlikely to be completed soon. Finally, electric vehicles remain at the mercy of high battery prices and masses among other issues. Make your own predictions for the coming decade in the comments.
[Source: Earth2Tech]
Over at Earth2Tech, they've taken a look at a handful of specific prognostications made during the first half of this decade about green transportation and compared them with where we are today. Needless to say, only one of the five predictions proved to be substantially correct. The "winner" is Toyota's prediction that hybrids would form a bridge technology to full EVs. Even with the relative success of hybrids, they still make up less than three percent of U.S. sales today. Natural gas has made little headway except in transit buses and a few other fleets. Hydrogen, of course, remains stymied by the lack of a fuel distribution network and, given California's financial difficulties, a high speed rail line there seems unlikely to be completed soon. Finally, electric vehicles remain at the mercy of high battery prices and masses among other issues. Make your own predictions for the coming decade in the comments.
[Source: Earth2Tech]
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