New Technology: Paving the way in the Car Industry, Pg.

1
Jackson Stone
UNWRT 1103-037
October 31, 2014

New Technology: Paving the way in the Car Industry

Introduction/ Background
Imagine getting into your car for the morning commute, sitting in the drivers seat and
realizing that there is no steering wheel. You might be surprised at first but then you remember
that its the twenty first century and people dont drive cars anymore, they drive themselves. Or
imagine pulling into a gas station and filling our vehicle with liquid hydrogen at 10,000 psi. Last
of all, picture yourself pulling into your house at night and plugging in your car to the outlet and
charging it up overnight. As unlikely as all of these seem, they are the future of cars and they are
approaching much more quickly than people realize. With our supply of fossil fuels diminishing
the need to find an alternative is becoming ever more pressing. Also with the advance in
computer technology it is now becoming safer and more efficient if the cars are the ones doing
the driving.
Since their creation, cars have played a central role in society and the way people travel.
However over the years cars have evolved and changed in order to be more efficient and easier
to use. These changes have led to great technological advances and resulted in the cars that we
drive today. Society is on the verge of another great change in automobile technology and the
future is unclear. Most cars today use an internal combustion engine fueled by gasoline. This
very well may change in the near future. There has recently been an increase in the number of
cars using electric and hydrogen fuel cell engines. Hydrogen cars run on liquid hydrogen and are

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very efficient. Like electric cars, they have little to no impact on the environment. This
technology is available and could easily be implemented into todays lifestyle. The procedure
for refilling the hydrogen car is the same as it is now. All that would be different is what was
being pumped into the tank. Another issue to be brought up is if people will even be driving cars
at all. Recently companies such as google have designed cars that are completely automated and
require no driver what so ever. This paper discusses the possible future of automobiles and how
that could impact ones ability to modify and customize their car.
My position on the change of fuel for cars is that it needs to happen and will be beneficial
to society. I believe that our dependence on fossil fuels is holding automobiles back
technologically and that in order to move on we need to find something new. Whether this means
electric, hydrogen, or some other fuel that has yet to be considered, in the end it is necessary for
that change to occur. However I am against the idea of cars driving themselves. As a car
enthusiast, I love to drive cars and to have that experience taken away would be very
disappointing. I enjoy being able to drive and modify cars and so not having those choices would
be a loss.

Review of Relevant Literature

While modern technology is continually improving every day, the fuel source behind
most of the technology is still the same basic fuel that was being used in the mid 1800s with the
invention of the internal combustion engine. While we have become much more efficient with
the fuel that we use, it is still less efficient than newer modern fuel sources and much more
damaging to the environment. There has recently been talks of a law increasing the minimal

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miles per gallon that a car can have. While this sounds like an easy simple solution, it would be a
big problem to the automotive industry. While the environment would become cleaner it would
severely impact the production and cost of the automobile. The increase in price could be as
much as a few thousand dollars which might be enough to deter potential customers from buying
the car. (Fischer et al, 2007). If a new fuel is to be used, it would have a lot of problems
integrating with todays lifestyle.
One of the biggest problems with a new fuel source is the implementation of the fuel into
todays market. There is already such a mass market for petroleum, it would be hard to find a
way to introduce hydrogen fuel cells to the people. Studies have shown that when faced with
something unfamiliar people will most likely revert to something that is familiar to them, in this
case fossil fuels (Howey, 2012).
Hydrogen fuel cells use liquid hydrogen as a fuel and the only exhaust that of the system
is clean water. So to be able to switch to this would be a huge benefit for the environment. If
enough people would switch over to hydrogen fuel cell cars than the CO2 emission would be
dramatically reduced. Many people including GMs Larry burns believe that this is the fuel of
the future and that the switch to hydrogen fuel cells isnt far into the future (Burns, 2014).
However, some people have found a problem with the switch to hydrogen fuel cell cars.
One of the biggest downside to hydrogen fuel cells is the cost of production. While
energy production plants are already all across the world, not many of them are making liquid
hydrogen. This would require a massive amount of energy and time in order to create the
necessary plants to manufacture the amount of liquid hydrogen required. Some even believe that
this production process will off put the amount of energy that is being saved by the switch from
fossil fueled vehicles. Most of these people believe that the future lies in fully electric powered

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vehicles. These vehicles run on electricity alone which means they also have zero CO2
emissions. This allows them to be exempt from the vehicle emissions test during inspection, but
causes them to be subjugated to an additional one hundred dollar charge. The only thing that the
car is powered by is a battery which means that in order to recharge the car all that is needed is
an outlet. This battery should be able to last about ten years before replacement will be
necessary. The replacement doesnt come cheap and will cost the owner around four thousand
dollars. One of the benefits of running on a battery is that there would only be a minimal amount
of impact on the daily life of the person who purchased the car. Also since it is electricity that is
powering the car, no new power plants would be needed. There would only need to be an
increase in the amount of electricity at the currently existing power plants (Shinnar, 2014). To
manage these complex batteries the car is run by an equally complex computer. This computer is
now becoming more efficient at driving than most people.
As the technology in cars has advanced a lot of emphasis has been put on the safety of the
car. It is now a possibility that the safest way for a person to drive is to simply let the car drive
itself. New technology is currently being made that allows cars to drive themselves. In most of
the testing the cars are able to drive more efficiently and without the possibility of distractions
and human error it is often more safer than if a person was driving the car. This is done by the
cars complex computer and surrounding sensors. The car is aware of its surrounding and is able
to react much faster than a person would be able to. This gives the car a much better ability to
avoid accidents and obstacles in the road. With this technology the amount of lives that could be
saved is uncountable (Rath, 2014). Although these systems are very promising there are still
doubts about the idea of a driverless car.

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One of the biggest questions about the driverless cars is what it would do in an
unavoidable situation. There is simply no replacement for the human thought process and
morality. If the computer is forced to choose between two bad scenarios it is unclear which one
the computer is likely to choose. The computer would need an ethical understanding of the
situation in which it is placed in and with our current technology that is impossible to program.
This isnt the only complaint among the car community. Many people enjoy driving cars would
be severely disappointed to lose that ability to go out on a nice drive on the weekend (NPR,
2014). Many people still enjoy driving and consider a benefit rather that a burden.
BBCs Top Gear is an automotive entertainment show that captures the essence of
enjoying the ability to drive your own car. The three hosts partake on a long distance drive while
completing odd challenges along the way. Throughout their journey the hosts review the cars
that they are driving and talk about their experiences. It is clear throughout the show that the
hosts take great pleasure in their jobs and enjoy driving and modifying their cars. Their show is a
prime example of how being able to modify and drive a car can give a person joy and how that
the experience of driving yourself to your destination is something that people still arent
wanting to give up yet (Stone, 2014).

Entering the conversation

The only thing one can be certain of in life is that change will happen. This also applies
to the car industry. In the past several years there have been great advancements in automobile
technology. From fuel sources to safety, the car industry has been completely changed forever.
While these changes might be for the better, there is something being lost. We are so blindly

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pushing forward in the name of progress that we arent taking a moment to appreciate what we
have. I am not suggesting that we need to stop innovating, but am merely pointing out what we
are losing by doing so. There recent need for a new fuel source has caused automobile
manufacturers to start looking for a new energy source. The search for new fuel sources require
more complex engines and operating systems. There has even been a push for driverless cars in
order to be more efficient and safe. With this driverless technology and more complex engines
people are slowly losing their ability to modify and customize their cars.
Two of the most promising of the new fuel sources are hydrogen fuel cells and fully
electric cars. Both of these options have proven to be much more efficient with little hindrance to
the consumers daily schedule. Even though these technologies are very different they do have
something in common. That is they both use very complex systems that remove the owners
ability to modify the automobile. Companies such as Tesla Automotive are paving the way in
electric automobiles. The owner of Tesla, Elon Musk, has also stated that he believes that cars
will drive themselves in the next couple of years. Other companies such as Google have also
started to create self-driving cars. What we are losing in this technology is the joy of driving.
The saying goes its not the destination, but the journey. By moving to driverless cars the person
is missing out on the joys of driving a car.
This progress in automotive technology is a good thing and needs to happen in order to
create a more sustainable way of living. The downside to these complex engines is that they
require experts to work on them and the purchaser does not have the ability to customize and
modify the car. With the driverless cars the person is removed almost completely from the
experience of the car and becomes only a passenger. With hydrogen fuel cells the liquid
hydrogen in the fuel cell is typically stored at -4230F and at 10,000 psi. This makes working on

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these engines extremely dangerous to a person who is uneducated in how to handle them. The
problem with fully electric cars is that it is a battery that is run by a highly complex computer.
This leaves little else for the owner to do in order to modify the car. While these cars are sport
oriented, besides the battery there is little else for the purchaser to do to enhance the performance
after it has left the factory. Although the progress of automobiles is good for the future, I will be
discussing how it affects a persons ability to modify and customize their car.
The hydrogen fuel cell engine is one of the more radical solutions to the fuel problem. It
would require new fueling station to be established all around the country and new factories to
process the liquid hydrogen. This option would also require a very complex engine to handle the
liquid hydrogen. The engine would produce electricity by striping the hydrogen atoms of their
electrons then combining them with oxygen molecules so that the only byproduct would be
water. The liquid hydrogen is extremely dangerous and should not be handled by someone who
is inexperienced or uneducated in the proper safety techniques to handle it. The liquid nitrogen
has to be kept at extremely cold temperature and at high pressures, so there are extreme safety
measure to make sure that the owner of the car wont be able to have access to the liquid
nitrogen. This means that the average person no longer has the ability to modify their car. Many
people in the U.S. enjoy modifying and customizing their cars to try and get the maximum
performance out of their cars. This has become a very large scene and many people would miss
this ability in their car. Another one of the more complex solutions to the fuel issue is electric
cars.
Electric cars would be the easiest switch when changing to a new fuel source. All that
would be required to recharge the car would be an outlet. The negative side of this would be that
the increase in electricity usage would cause the energy companies to increase their production,

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which could also have negative effects on the environment. Like the hydrogen fuel cell cars, the
electric cars run on complex systems that limit the amount of customization that the purchaser
has. The cars power source, the battery, is controlled by the cars computer. Besides putting in a
more powerful battery or creating room for multiple batteries there is nothing else that the owner
can do to modify the car besides aesthetics and airflow of the exterior of the car. I believe that by
moving to these alternate fuels we are gaining a more sustainable future, but losing our ability to
customize and modify our cars.
Another future innovation is that cars will be able to drive themselves. The idea is that
the computers will be able to drive safer and more efficient than humans. While this technology
is not quite ready to be implemented many people have already taken a position against it.
Driving has become the passion of many people all over the world and to take that away would
be a great loss. Being able to enjoy the journey as well as the destination is important and a part
of that is driving. By losing our ability to even drive our cars we are losing a lot more than our
ability to customize our cars. We are simply becoming passengers in our own cars and missing
out on a much better experience of being able to drive our own cars.

Conclusion
This paper is not to discourage the evolution of technology in the automotive industry. It
is meant to point out what we are losing by the fast paced changes being made to the cars that we
drive. While most people agree that a new fuel source needs to be found it is still very unclear
what that new fuel source will be. There is also a debate whether or not the technology to make
car drive themselves should be implemented. I am suggesting that people should look at the car

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not as a tool but as something that should be enjoyed and that cars should not become
autonomous. This point of view is important because when people take the time to enjoy their
cars then it stops becoming a commute and turns into something that the driver can look forward
to. So while hydrogen fuel cells and electric cars may be more efficient, the things they take
away are also important. They take away a persons ability to modify and customize their cars.
This might not seem like a big deal to some people but to others it is a large part of their identity.
However it is far from clear which direction the technology in the automotive industry will take.
Further research on how other types of alternative fuel sources that would allow for modification
and customization could be done as well as research on when these technologies are likely to be
implemented.

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Annotated Bibliography
"Green Vehicle Laws and Regulations in North Carolina." DMV. January 1, 2014. Accessed
October 19, 2014.

Fischer, Carolyn, Winston Harrington, and Ian Parry. "Should Automobile Fuel Economy
Standards be Tightened ." The Energy Journal 28 (2007): 29.
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/41323119?uid=3739776&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&s
id=21104851893293 (accessed October 3, 2014).

Howey, David. "A Challenging Future for Cars." Nature Climate Change, January 1, 2012, 2.

NPR Staff. "Hands-Free, Mind-Free: What We Lose Through Automation." National Public
Radio. September 29, 2014. Accessed September 3, 2014.

Rath, Arun. "Is There A Driverless Car In Your Future?" National Public Radio. May 31, 2014.
Accessed September 3, 2014.

Shinnar, R. "The Hydrogen Economy, Fuel Cells, And Electric Cars." Technology in Society 25,
no. 4 (2003): 455-476. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2003.09.024 (accessed October 3,
2014).

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Stone, Jackson. Assignment One. Project Response, University of North Carolina at Charlotte,
2014.

Ted Talks. "The future of cars." Larry Burns:. http://www.ted.com/talks/reinventing_the_car

(accessed October 3, 2014).