Future Vehicle Technology and its Implementation.

The automotive industry is facing several challenges right now, such as economical crisis and tough competition. At the same time the demand of alternative transportation technologies is increasing and the legislations on emissions for light duty vehicles are tightening. To be able to survive in this harsh business climate, new and creative solutions are needed and the changes have to be fast. Today's vehicle fleet is almost entirely dependent on fossil fuels and scientists are indicating that the increasing amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is contributing to the global warming. The challenge for the industry is to increase the vehicles fuel economy and make them run further on the same amount of fuel, or even better, by not using any fossil fuels at all. This master thesis's main objective is to help Lotus Engineering making up general guidelines and information for the selection of new automotive technology through analysis of several new powertrain technologies and fuels. The following technologies are being considered: Internal combustion engine vehicles Mechanical hybrid vehicles Electric vehicles Hybrid electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles Fuel cell vehicles Alternative fuels: Bio-diesel, natural gas, ethanol, methanol, hydrogen and synthetic fuels The vehicle structure and design is another important factor when it comes to fuel economy, since aerodynamic drag, weight and rolling resistance are major factors that affects the fuel economy. This thesis gives information about how to design and reduce weight of the car. This thesis also contains a simulation chapter, where a series and a parallel hybrid are compared in terms of fuel economy to help knowing when to use which type of system. All of this is summarized in the future vision chapter. The analysis is made to show the potential of each technology to make it in the future society and consider cost, the potential to implement it into our current society and infrastructure and how much support the technology has amongst leading governments and commissions. No full cost analysis is done since this thesis is focusing more on the technical aspects of the technology than the economic aspect. The driving behavior of the car users has also been taken in to consideration, even though in a very basic manner. The research only reaches into a feasible future, until about 2050