Over the past few years, in particular, there has been a distinct transition away from vehicles primarily fuelled by petrol or diesel but instead relying heavily on increasingly powerful electric batteries made possible using scaled-up toll processing techniques.
However, before it became clear that electric vehicles were the future of motoring, there were many other attempts to process waste and byproducts of other industries destined for landfill and use them to power cars.
Here are some of the most unique methods and how far they came.
Coffee Grounds
Whilst the byproduct of producing one of the world’s most popular drinks has seen use in a wide number of industries, including printer inks, dyes and fertiliser, it has also been used to power cars using a process known as gasification.
Diesel engines, in particular, can be more easily modified to handle coffee fuel, but the technology has never progressed beyond the prototype stage.
Solar Paint
One of the earliest electric vehicle concepts that had potential was specially designed solar cars, but the sheer cost of researching them made them ultimately unviable for a very long time, with the first production solar car set to be released in 2022.
However, one potential technology that could make this easier is the development of solar paint and solar sticker layers, which could convert any steel panel or structure into a solar-powered device.
Compressed Air
Compressed air canisters are commonly used as a way to clean office keyboards, but theoretically, the technology can be used to power a tiny light car, as Indian car manufacturer Tata have attempted to do for many years.
The problem is that, whilst compressed air is inherently emission-free, currently, the top speed of prototype cars has been limited to around 30 miles per hour with a very limited range, making the practicality of such a vehicle dubious at best.