Aero'sFuture: Future Cars

YEAR POSTED: 2009

The future of the world will undoubtedly contain upgraded version of all transportation technology currently used and available plus some that are highly inconvenient and nonexistent. Such technologies will come with future varieties of cars, more aerodynamic trucks, faster trains, all around better air travel, and eventually, teleportation. These technologies will bring people from all parts of the world much closer together, a key factor in economic growth and the future of humanity's success.

Cars
Currently, as of the year 1997, the fastest moving land vehicle exceeded the sound barrier on the Bonneville Salt Flats. The jet-propelled British-designed automobile obtained an astonishing and extraordinary velocity of 763 miles per hour, barely two miles per hour beyond the sound barrier. This speed demon was known as ThrustSSC, and it has a new, faster successor.

By the early 2010s, BloodhoundSSC could very well raise the land speed record to, hopefully, over one thousand miles per hour. It is a second-generation project built by the same team of people that fabricated Thrust SSC and will try to obtain their speedy goal on the same salt flat as its predecessor.

2010
As fossil fuels become increasingly expensive, along with the complete realization (by scientists) that they ruin the atmosphere and cause global warming to spin out of control, more and more vehicular manufacturers turn towards  alternative fuel sources for cars. Most of them will divert their efforts into hybrid (petroleum and electric) and hydrogen-powered vehicles. Although they are technically alternatives to fossil fuels, they are still primitive choices seeing as current range for electrical vehicles is only two hundred or so miles.

2025
What little fossil fuels humanity contains and has in storage will be tremendously and almost breathtakingly elevated. As gasoline prices near ten dollars per gallon, humanity will fall into paranoia and panic. Those imprisoned with the primitive petroleum-fueled vehicles will begin noticing that they can not afford their needed gasoline as they form mile-long lines at almost all gas stations. Many car manufacturers will have turned to full-electric and hyrdogen-powered vehicles due to the fact that the typical range for an electric car will be nearly six hundred miles on one charge and that it will only require two to three hours to fully charge.

In a stroke of efficiency, the average speed limit for all freeways of the United States will be nearly eighty-five miles per hour with the high ends reaching up to ninety-five miles per hour. This will be a spectacular twenty to thirty miles per hour jump from today. The estimated land speed record will exceed nearly twelve hundred miles per hour, just three hundred miles per hours short of twice the speed of sound.

With fossil fuels being depleted, no hybrids will exist and humanity will have accordingly turned to a plethora of alternative vehicle energy. Full electric cars will run for hundreds of miles on one charge, hydrogen fueled cars will have fuel cells lining the underbelly of the vehicle allowing any arrangment of luxurious seating, and solar powered vehicles will have significantly increased in demand starting in 2025 after manufacterurs have discovered an energy-efficiency in solar panels

2010's retro and semi-smooth cars will be a thing of the past as new, even more aerodynamic, ultramodern vehicles replace them. Customizeable appearences in all cars will be a mandate and highly common. Any color tinted windows may be used with shimmering, duotone paint jobs (on tremendously exotic foreign cars).

The average speed limit of an American highway will be risen to nearly 120 miles per hour, some reaching as high as 135 miles per hour. As luxury, aesthetics, power, speed, and energy-efficiency increase in quality, so will the average price of a car; however, not too much due to the easy manufactering techniques used by the vehicle industries. The average price of a used family sedan will reach fifteen thousand dollars while the price of a brand new top-of-the-line exotic will reach upwards of $500,000 to $600,000, leaving a new, everyday car at an average of $45,000.

2040
By the year 2040, petroleum will have gone out of cars all together. Electric cars will be commonplace along with hydrogen fuel cell cars. As a matter of fact, by this time all cars will be driverless. This automation will make cars and other vehicles safer. The speed limit will be a very high number in the line of 150 mph. Accidents will be very few. The fastest car will probably be at Mach 3, not yet at hypersonic range but getting there.

Trucks
Throughout the entirety of the twenty-first century, truck materials will become lighter and lighter and the trucks themselves will gradually receive aerodynamic improvements. The semi-truck's dual windshield will most likely converge into one large glass section as the truck becomes more maneuverable. Higher saftety features will also be mandatory for trucks of the early to late twenty-first century.