The AUTOnomy: a car of the future. It has no engine, no gasoline, no steering wheel and no exhaust.

In 2002, a vision of the car of the future was unveiled at the Detroit Motor Show. Called the AUTOnomy, it did away with almost everything we've come to expect from cars: it had no engine, no gasoline, no mechanical links between the controls and the wheels, no steering wheel--and it produced no exhaust.

This prototype, on which General Motors is placing a billion dollar bet, is largely the brainchild of two men: Chris Borroni-Bird and Larry Burns. Both men want to reinvent the car as we know it by combining technology with design to create a vehicle that's as appealing to drivers as it is friendly to the environment.

Achieving environmental sustainability means making cars that use less oil and produce less pollution, and GM isn't the only car company looking ahead. Alan gets up close and personal with entries from all of the major automobile manufacturers at the 2003 Challenge Bibendum, an annual competition of environmentally-friendly vehicles, in California.

The first Model T was built in 1908

While GM's drivable version of the AUTOnomy concept car, called the Hywire, is a darling at the Challenge Bibendum, the car will not be available anytime soon. In the meantime, the Toyota Prius--a so-called hybrid vehicle because it supplements its gas engine with electric motors--is already on the road.

Alan takes the Prius for a spin and finds that having both electric and gasoline power means that the hybrid can switch back and forth between the two power sources to achieve maximum efficiency. For instance, when the car needs extra power to climb a hill, both gas and electricity kick in. Downhill, the gas engine quits and the car converts the motion of the vehicle, which would normally be lost as heat from braking, into electricity to regenerate the battery.

While some companies work to develop new, non-traditional cars like the Prius, others hope to improve upon existing models. Several European and some U.S. manufacturers, including Ford, are looking to diesel power.

Diesels get about 30 percent better mileage and emit less carbon dioxide than gas-powered cars, but they put out more smoke. Alan visits the emissions control lab at Ford to see how a diesel's exhaust can be cleaned up to meet strict U.S. standards. The plan is to employ a modified version of the standard catalytic converter. By trapping and then burning off soot particles, the new catalytic converters can bring down emissions by a factor of a hundred, or even a thousand.

Back at the Challenge Bibendum, Alan goes for a ride in the tzero--a sports car that is capturing most of the environmental awards. Powered entirely by batteries, the tzero produces no emissions at all and can rocket from zero to 60 miles per hour in less than four seconds.

An earlier shortcoming of electric-powered cars was their short battery life. But today, Dan Kammen of the University of California, Berkeley explains, companies have found a way to design lighter batteries that run longer without needing charging--300 miles for the tzero.

For more on this topic, see the web feature:
Hydrogen Power: A discussion with Chris Borroni-Bird