It seems that the end of the road is near for the combustion engine. 

Ferrari recently released the 599 with a Hy-Kers battery boost system and regenerative braking while Lamborghini have released pictures of their latest ‘Minotauro’ concept, which is to be run electrically.

According to the designer of the ‘Minotauro’, Andrei Avarvarii: "The absence of a big V12 engine in the rear creates enough room for a third passenger in a central position."

More and more car manufacturers are ditching the all-mighty, power hungry petrol engines for the drab and boring electric motors, like in the Mini E, the Chevrolet Volt (known as the Vauxhall/Opel Ampera for E

uropean markets) and so on.

These cars might be good to the environment and future generations but where is the fun in listening to a giant washing machine spinning when you should have the sweet note of an engine hovering on th

e red line on the apex of a corner?

Nowadays, manufacturers are spending millions of euros in research and development to find the best way to place the motors and the thousands of laptop batteries so as not to alter the centr

e of gravity and to make the battery-powered car feel and drive like a petrol-engined car.

Studies carried out by the Boston Consulting Group predict that electric cars would account for just six percent of the global market in 2020, or about three million of approximately 54.5 million vehicles sold overall.

The study predicts that the cost of a battery pack about the size of the Volt’s will fall by €7,615, or 64 per cent, from 2009 to 2020, but even then it would take about 15 years for the cost of owning an electric vehicle to equal that of a petrol-powered car.

If we look at the way everything is moving, we will soon be driving near-silent cars, which will stop after around 300 kilometers,when the batteries go flat if you are lucky.

Can you imagine how long the Le Mans 24-hour race would take if after every 300 kilometers or so, racing cars would have to pit for an eight-hour charge?

Fret not, Honda have had the answer for two years now: hydrogen fuel cells. Now I can’t tell you if a hydrogen car is more interesting to drive than a battery-powered car but I do know that if you are low on hydrogen you can go to a filling station and just fill up in exactly the same way as a traditional car.

Basically, you fill your tank with liquid hydrogen, which is then passed through and mixed with oxygen to create power to drive the front wheels. Along with having a car that moves using the most abundant element in the world, the fumes that come out of your exhaust are pure water, which are essentially two hydrogen elements and one oxygen element.

According to the Department of Energy in America, fuel cell vehicles are nearly three times more efficient as petrol-powered cars. The Honda FCX Clarity is EPA rated at 3.05 litres/100km (urban), 3.51 l/100km (extra-urban). With the assumption that a fuel cell vehicle is twice as efficient as a petrol car, hydrogen sold at €2.30 per gallon is equal to €1.16 per gallon of petrol.

There is one tiny problem with the only hydrogen fuel cell car being produced today. The Honda FCX Clarity,  can only be bought in California, but should be mass produced worldwide by 2018.

No one really knows what the successor to the combustion engine will be and when it will take over, but the piston heads out there can keep hoping it doesn’t.

BY Nikolai Attard