An alternative fuel vehicle is a motor vehicle that runs on alternative fuel rather than traditional petroleum fuels (petrol or petrodiesel). The term also refers to any technology (e.g. electric cars, hybrid electric vehicles, solar-powered vehicles) powering an engine that does not solely involve petroleum. Because of a combination of factors, such as environmental concerns, high oil-prices and the potential for peak oil, development of cleaner alternative fuels and advanced power systems for vehicles has become a high priority for many governments and vehicle manufacturers around the world.
Vehicle engines powered by gasoline/petrol first emerged in the 1860s and 1870s; they took until the 1930s to completely dominate the original "alternative" engines driven by steam (18th century), by gases (early 19th century), or by electricity ( 1830s).
Hybrid electric vehicles such as the Toyota Prius are not actually alternative fuel vehicles, but through advanced technologies in the electric battery and motor/generator, they make a more efficient use of petroleum fuel. Other research-and-development efforts in alternative forms of power focus on developing all-electric and fuel cell vehicles, and even on the stored energy of compressed air.
An environmental analysis of the impacts of various vehicle-fuels extends beyond just operating efficiency and emissions, especially if a technology comes into wide use. A life-cycle assessment of a vehicle involves production and post-use considerations. A cradle-to-cradle design is more important than a focus on a single factor such as the type of fuel.
there were more than 1.4 billion motor vehicles on the world's roads, compared with just more than 116 million alternative fuel and advanced technology vehicles that had been sold or converted worldwide at the end of 2016 and consisting of:
About 55 million flex fuel automobiles, motorcycles and light duty trucks manufactured and sold worldwide by mid 2015, led by Brazil with 29.5 million by mid 2015, followed by the United States with 17.
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A Natural Gas Vehicle (NGV) is an alternative fuel vehicle that uses compressed natural gas (CNG) or liquefied natural gas (LNG). Natural gas vehicles should not be confused with autogas vehicles powered by liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), mainly propane, a fuel with a fundamentally different composition. In a natural-gas-powered vehicle, energy is released by the combustion of methane gas (MethaneCH4) fuel with oxygen (OxygenO2) from the air to form carbon dioxide (Carbon dioxideCO2) and water vapor (WaterH2O) in an internal combustion engine.
A flexible-fuel vehicle (FFV) or dual-fuel vehicle (colloquially called a flex-fuel vehicle) is an alternative fuel vehicle with an internal combustion engine designed to run on more than one fuel, usually gasoline blended with either ethanol or methanol fuel, and both fuels are stored in the same common tank. Modern flex-fuel engines are capable of burning any proportion of the resulting blend in the combustion chamber as fuel injection and spark timing are adjusted automatically according to the actual blend detected by a fuel composition sensor.
A plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) is any road vehicle that can utilize an external source of electricity (such as a wall socket that connects to the power grid) to store electrical energy within its onboard rechargeable battery packs, to power an electric motor and help propelling the wheels. PEV is a subset of electric vehicles, and includes all-electric/battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs).
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A reversible photo-electrochemical device operating under concentrated irradiation could offer a stand-alone solution for producing solar fuel (in photo-driven electrolysis mode) and power (in fuel cell mode). This strategy would present the advantage of h ...
2024
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pNEUMA is an open large-scale dataset of naturalistic trajectories of half a million vehicles that have been collected by a one-of-a-kind experiment by a swarm of drones in the congested downtown area of Athens, Greece. A unique observatory of traffic cong ...
EPFL Infoscience2024
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Advancing towards alternative technologies for the sustainable production of hydrogen is a necessity for the successful integration of this potentially green fuel in the future. Photocatalytic and photoelectrochemical water splitting are promising concepts ...