Actually a very elegant wheel powered electric car was developed in the USA in the 1960s. It was collapsible and weighed only 208 kg. They worked perfectly even in a challenging offroad environment but were never marketed to consumers.

A traction drive attached to each wheel had a motor harmonic drive gear unit, and a brake assembly. The harmonic drive reduced motor speed at an 80-to-1 rate for continuous operation at all speeds without gear shifting. The drive had an odometer pickup (measuring distance travelled) that sent data to the navigation system. Each motor developed 0.18 kilowatt (1/4-horsepower) and operated from a 36-volt input.

Technical data here: http://www.astronautix.com/craft/apololrv.htm

The above scurrilousness may well be true (or not), but it has nothing to do with production and use of energy.

I'm not the moderator of this group, but such comments do seem inappropriate, and should be discouraged

I thought swiss cheesers were neutral like there holy cheeses,[that is to say; they dont bite ] and seppo's, [as we affectionately refer to u.s.americans in oz] like the nationalist armies of Europe they helped us defeat in ww2 were always right [even when its blatantly obvious to the rest of us they dont have to win to be right].ANYHOW...Consider the BAKER ELECTRIC automobile of 1911 vintage .It looked very similar to granny's car in the sylvester tweetie pie cartoons re: that stereotypical seppo maroon; bugs bunny.It was a large heavy 5+seater of sound rubust pedigree and technology [relative to the era and if truth be known,right up till the 70's ]and returned remarkable mileage from its cheap bank of deep cycling lead/acid batteries under its floor boards .In fact it was so good that it embarrassed a shed load of prodigious auto heavyweight seppo's the likes of William Crappo Durant,the dodgey brothers,old henry et.al . To make sure this innovative method of propulsion was embraced publicly,they relegated the technology to there [not the consumer's] benefit. The BAKER ELECTRIC CAR COMPANY was bought off and its innovative patents were licenced in the form of all those little shuttle carts we still see in the big factories/airports today.And amazingly the 1911 baker electric car [Ive driven one],100 odd years later still returns similar mileage stats to its progeny.Sure its not reverse polarity energy cycling or redox elecrolite powered or super conductive technology,but it worked and it had the potential to decentralise a fair whack of 'c'word.Just imagine where we would be if the seppo dollar had embaced BAKER et.al instead of buying into watt ,otto,atkins miller and alike.NOT REAL SMART IN RETROSPECT UNCLE SAM.

HERES ANOTHER SEPPO INIVATION THAT NEVER GOT OFF THE GROUND PLUS WATER POWERED ENGINES.In the 1960's I was keen on the magazine called'popular mechanics'[dont even know if it still exists].One very intriguing and innovating article of the time featured a picture of a housewife with one of those old school yet progressive 'reusable string bags' and in it was a miniature jet motor that weighed about 20kg. this little power plant could run a 60's yank tank for 140 miles on a pound of coal dust and in those days u could buy 2000pound [yankee short ton] for a buck [do the maths its magic].Now riddle me this.....If super heated steam passed over a catalyst[red hot carbon] produces hydrogen and o2 which instantly burns creating heat [power] and water vapour why havent we seen water powered engines anywhere?Anyone care to comment or make there mark?

Recently I've been thinking that PO is not going to have the drammatic effect on our lives that many who write here believe and incremental technology developements such as this reinforces those thoughts.

Euan, the main point that comes out of peak oil is that growth is unsustainable. If we can't transition to zero growth, we will get collapse. If we can transition to zero growth, we'll have a completely different society. If you want to believe in a magical world of continued growth, using alternative this, that and the other, that's fine but can you come up with a convincing argument for why that growth will not hit limits?

Forgive the ramble and not always quite relavent response, I have been researching renewables/sustainability over the last few weeks and as near as I can judge the only bar to mass take up of renewables for distributed generation is economics, and this holds for mobile equipment as well. I am principally interested in power generation, and in the UK, at least, it is impossible to make an economic case for domestic installations whether they are PV, Ground Source Heat Pump, Fuel Cell, CHP etc. There is just about a business case for some commercial Fuel Cell installations but there is a lot of legislation in the way of some allied technology.
As for cars there appears to be no technology bar to the production of fuel cell based systems in the now (non hydrogen but still much more efficient than ICE), the barriers are again purely economic. (This is regardless of the chosen final drive system) This is where the lobby groups come in. Do you remember the introduction of catalytic converters?. These were introduced in the US because the car giants would not invest, had not invested, in modern (clean) engine technology and catalysts were a far cheaper option. That they result in higher fuel consumption and therefore higher CO2 emissions has never been raised as an issue. All this of course stemmed from the need to reduce atmospheric pollution. In Europe and Japan, there were some excellent developments in clean and lean engine technologies that got brushed under the carpet when Europe decided to follow the US. What they should have done was set emission limits and made how you achieved them optional. The same lobby will likely prevail when it comes to commercialisation of fuel cell vehicles.(we do not have to start with renewables, better use of what we have got would be a good beginning) Look under almost any US car and you will find, steel chassis, leaf springs and live rear axles, big heavy and cheap. Moving the US automotive industry into the 20th century let alone the 21st is a major hurdle and unfortunately this will probably determine the rate of change as this is one powerful world wide political lobby.

OK!! LETS DO SOME WORD ASSOCIATION POSSUMS! HERE WE GO!!! 1.. SAFE is to NUCLEAR as MILITARY is to INTELLIGENCE 2... RENEWABLE is to ENERGY as THE FIRST LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS is to AN APPLE CIDER HANGOVER 3...STONE is to AGE as SAFE NULEAR ENERGY is to SAFE INTELLIGENT 20TH CENTURY SUSTAINABLE TECHNOLOGY!!!! REMEMBER THE OLD AXIUM... 'THOSE WHO REFUSE TO LEARN FROM HISTORY ARE DOOMED TO RELIVE IT ... KEEP THE YELLOW PIOSON IN THE COLD COLD GROUND AS A LATENT LEGAGY TO OUR GREAT GREAT GREAT GRAND CHILDREN FOR THEIR GREAT GREAT GREAT GRAND CHILDREN. THEY'LL BE SO USED TO THE HEAT BY THEN THAT MAYBE THEY WONT MIND ITS RISKS.