After the energy crises of the 1970’s, some predicted the end of our love affair with the car; 20 years later we can see they were wrong. So, in another 20 years, what will the cars our children drive be like?

The School of Vehicle Design at Britain’s Royal College of Art (RCA) has trained the designers of some of the world’s most famous cars, including the MacLaren F1, the most technically advanced super car yet. But we can also get a picture of the car of the future by looking at the latest developments in automotive designs and performance auto parts aspects.

Outwardly, tomorrow’s car won’t be so very different. You need only look back at the cars introduced in 1980 to see that change is slow – a few of those are still in production, and the Mini, for example, remains basically unchanged after 38 years.

Most cars will be propelled by piston engines, as they are today. Gasoline and diesel will have a place, though to what extent will depend on government encouragement for alternative fuels – natural gas, ethanol, methanol or rapeseed oil. California has already announced that 10 percent of all cars introduced after 2002 must produce “zero emissions”.

Although the electric car will eventually arrive, the most advanced batteries now can only store a 50^th of the energy of a tank of a gasoline. It’s likely electric cars will be best suited to low average speeds and short journeys. Even with this in mind, how do you charge the batteries if they run low in town? Perhaps parking meters could have chargers built in so you can top up while you do the shopping. Curb-side boxes for recharging cars are already available in Paris.

In the meantime, some cars will overcome the disadvantages of batteries by carrying two power sources: electric motors to drive the wheels and a small combustion engine to act as a generator to keep the batteries charged up. In America, both Ford and Chrysler have produced ideas for such “hybrid” cars that promise up to 100 miles per hour and 90 miles per gallon.

We can also expect a change in the way cars are presented, as emphasized by the Smart car from Swatch and Mercedes-Benz. Owners will be encouraged to customize their Smart cars with extra fittings and different colored panels. This idea is taken further by the Vauxhall Maxx concept car, which has an aluminum frame onto which the buyer can clip precisely the fittings he or she wants. Body panels, including the doors and roof, can easily be removed and replaced with different design.

This individuality will be part of a new kind of enthusiasm for cars, in which fashion plays a bigger role than performance and macho image. Cars going to become more of a fashion statement – a mechanical form of dressing.

The key to making the car of the future easier and safer to drive is electronics. Some Mercedes models already have a microprocessor that not only detects the beginning of a skid but corrects it by adjusting acceleration and braking. A system also exists that can automatically maintain a safe distance from the car in front, and Volkswagen has demonstrated a car that you can draw up alongside a parking space and leave to do the parking on its own. Mercedes even has a car that can drive itself.

However, electronics will really benefit motorists by enabling us to make the most of our increasingly congested road systems. Satellite-linked navigation systems - with a dashboard screen and links to a mobile phone and the car’s stereo – will be commonplace. They will provide tourist information, locations of hotels and gasoline stations, as well as talking to you with route instructions, warnings and phone messages.

Ultimately you will be able to give your car verbal instructions. In Ford’s Synergy 2010 prototype, a voice- recognition system enables the driver to tell the car what to do – more heat, radio on, activate turn signal and so on.

Twenty years from now cars will not only to continue as most people’s preferred means of transportation, but will be more useful than ever before.

Jedd Sullivan is an automobile writer specializing in automobile and car accessories products and has written authoritative articles on the Automotive industry. He also works as a Market Analyst for one of the leading discount auto parts retailers in the country today.

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