Yes, considering the first hybrid with the Prius was available as early as 1998, the car industry should have switched to hybrids in the early 2000s. But unfortunately they didn't. Just keeping selling pure combustion engined cars was far too profitable. I think Tesla did indeed play a huge role in pushing full electric cars. Which today is of course the correct technology for most applications as it skips the combustion engine completely.
Hybrid planes would be quite attractive, but of course the certification bareer which might be too large
Re:The $20 an hour Cessna 172 experiment
by AtlasBarfed on Saturday February 11, 2023 @01:28PM
(#34754846)
I thought going directly to BEV was a good plan, but then someone on this site pointed out that if civilization needs to go to BEVs, and there is X supply of battery materials, should we use those in 100kwhr packs for full BEVs, or in 20 kwhr battery packs for PHEVs that will deliver 80-90% of trips electrified?
So you effectively electrify 5x the number of cars...
But, that opportunity has passed, at least we are moving towards electrification.
In my vision a compact rotary (that inside-out rotary patent a few years ago looked even more promising) would recharge the battery subsystem. Or maybe a fuel cell.
The same would probably work for GA. Really, hybrids will work regardless of the battery tech for the next couple decades.