The cars of the future - TechKnow

In this TechKnow episode, Phil Torres visits the Toyota Technical Center in California to take a spin in Toyota's brand new hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCV) and to learn about the future of these alternative fuel vehicle cars.

The fuel you pump into these cars is hydrogen gas. Energy is created in the fuel cell through a reaction with hydrogen in the tanks with oxygen from the air - with the end result being electricity and water. In fact, water is its only emission.

California's tough emission standards precipitated the development of the hydrogen car and Toyota is the first company to roll out a consumer version. They have been working on the technology for over 20 years and their model has been tested in different extreme conditions.

Other major manufacturers, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, and Mercedes, are gearing up for their own models.

Correspondent Shini Somara visits Ann Arbor, Michigan to explore vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication for safer driving. V2V technology is a Wi-fi type system that will allow every vehicle on the road to "talk" to each other at short-range, calculating danger and issuing warnings.

The US federal government is in the final stages of mandating this technology in all new cars.

In an usual collaboration for a highly competitive industry, nine major carmakers are working together to cement this V2V technology.

Somara also looks at the latest developments in crash test dummies and how researchers are using 3-D imaging to make those dummies smarter and to better understand the different impacts of crashes on various body types.

And TechKnow contributor Kosta Grammatis, an engineer, who has designed all kinds of things from satellites in space to a bionic eye, takes a ride in a driverless car. He examines the technology that has gone into creating cars that switch between drivers - the human driver and the vehicle.

[mattholden]

the problem with hydrogen fuel cells is that you need oil to create the fuel cell

[juligrlee]

Will it ever be possible for homeowners to have their own hydrogen generator plants in their back yards where solar cells can perform electrolysis of water to separate hydrogen and oxygen from water into these atomic elements while subsequently storing the hydrogen for refueling the car?

[shanghai_city]

Is there anyway i can get all the episodes of Tech know on Youtube from Al Jazeera? I don't want to scroll through thousands of video.

[shanghai_city]

Good show. Liked it. Thanks Al Jazeera.

[tnk]

The recent fatality that occurred involving a driver using a car on auto-pilot functionality certainly slowed the progress of the driver-less car revolution.

[SocietyatLarge]

The Honda was on top gear a long time ago

[altond]

I`ve been reading for years, decades even about the difficulties of generating and storing hydrogen and now suddenly I`m reading about fuel cell cars. I`d like to read a good article about how this all came about,
One problem that I see with fuel cell vehicles is, can you imagine a bunch of these cars driving around in sub freezing weather spewing water all over the roads? It looks like a dangerous situation to me. Elon is right, they`re a silly idea.

[zinetnezirhassen]

When the comment section is better than the actual video😀😀😀😊😄😀

Jackie Burnsel, who appears to be in her early to mid 20s, states that she has been working on this project for 11 years. I call bullshit.

[juligrlee]

I know Hydrogen is the smallest atom. I know Hydrogen is a contaminant in metal containers like steel. How is the Hydrogen contained? I know much of the hydrogen used to fuel rockets get wasted by escaping from the production location to the Rocket fuel tanks. How are those problems overcome?

[portalplayer]

this show features a lot of women, is this done on purpose??