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If the real overall impact on the environment were calculated on each of these vehicles, they would turn out to have a much larger “carbon footprint” than most vehicles in the price bracket and use categories in which they are being sold.

At the current stage of development, vehicles that rely on battery power and recharge from home or parking stations are still dead ends. Once fuel cells that operate on a pure grade of methane are developed, THEN there may be a quantum leap in the application of electric-powered vehicles.

From what I understand, there is, still in largely experimental stage, a methane-fueled Solid-Oxide Fuel Cell, which delivers some 60% of the energy contained in Methane as power to drive the vehicle. This compares with some 17-40% conversion of energy from gasoline fuel or Diesel fuel into propulsion power for the vehicle, and depending on the source of the generated electricity, a hybrid (that uses some on-board power from an internal-combustion engine) is scarcely better than a Diesel.

Considering that a central electric power generation plant only delivers about 40% or so of the caloric energy in a fuel burned to produce the electricity, and another 10% or so is lost in the transmission of the electricity from point of production to point of use (charging the batteries), the comparative energy that may be applied for propulsion of the pure electric vehicle falls to a very low level, hardly worth the extra expense for all the fancy engineering and manufacturing costs of the hybrid vehicle.

Now, if the intention is to produce a propulsion system that has a very high transformation of the caloric energy of the fuel to the amount transmitted to the propulsion of the vehicle, then a closed recirculating system using a reciprocating steam engine, in which no water or water vapor escapes to the open air, driving a hydraulic transmission that supplies power to each individual wheel through a hydrostatic drive motor mounted at the hub, eliminates a lot of power loss through the drive system, and makes for a much more even application of torque during acceleration and cruising, and a regenerative effect when slowing or braking. Such a steam engine was produced nearly 90 years ago, (the Doble design) using the materials then available, and driving a vehicle that was heavy and cumbersome by today’s standards, that got astonishing efficiencies, but since the internal combustion engine was widely available, and distilled fuel was relatively cheap, the further development of this design was abandoned. If revived today, the use of propane-butane LP gas would make a compact and clean-burning fuel source, and the available materials to construct a boiler and piston design are vastly better engineered. The hydrostatic drive has been applied to farm and industrial heavy machinery, and has achieved a high degree of reliability and efficiency of power transmission.