A pal of mine who works in powertrain at Ford advised me just lately the corporate has only one extra new engine coming. And that is it. Ford, like most different automakers, is shifting its powertrain lineup from gasoline and diesel engines to electrical motors within the coming years. Ford has drastically decreased the variety of engineers assigned to create new engines and enhance current ones.

“I am the final man standing,” my pal stated with a semi-serious chortle.

However automakers’ transfer away from additional growth of the inner combustion engine doesn’t suggest we will put an finish date on the basic workhorse. There are some automobiles whose obligation cycles should not — but — suitable with battery-electric powertrains. Contemplate the heavy-duty variations of pickups used as work automobiles on farms and ranches and for hauling heavy hundreds lengthy distances, reminiscent of delivering basic vehicles.

Electrical motors can simply ship extra torque than the highly effective diesel V-8s within the Duramax, Energy Stroke and Cummins engines within the Chevrolet Silverado/GMC Sierra, Ford Tremendous Responsibility and Ram Heavy Responsibility pickups. However battery know-how has not superior sufficient to allow these behemoths to journey as far on a single cost as they’ll drive at present on a single tank of gasoline. And charging instances have to return down — approach, down.

Let’s take a look at the numbers for a second.

The Silverado heavy-duty diesel truck has a 36.2-gallon gasoline tank and will get about 19 mpg cruising unloaded on the freeway, in line with a assessment. That provides it a freeway driving vary of about 687 miles on a tank. For example {that a} trailer is linked and the motive force maxes out the truck’s 18,500-pound towing capability. Gas financial system, in fact, will undergo. For example it drops by half. The truck can nonetheless go greater than 340 miles on a tank and be refueled and again on the highway in lower than quarter-hour. No electrical truck can do this — but.

Normal Motors CEO Mary Barra introduced in January at CES that the corporate is engaged on electrical variations of its heavy-duty pickups that may be obtainable by 2035. No technical particulars, driving vary or charging-time estimates got, with Barra saying solely that the automobiles would have “a spread wanted to get the hardest jobs completed.”

The obligation cycles of emergency automobiles reminiscent of ambulances, hearth vans and electricity-guzzling police automobiles are additionally not suitable with battery-electric powertrains. I visited my metropolis’s police division in Berkley, Mich., with my 10-year-old nephew for a tour. I requested the officer, Lt. Jordan Kobernick, if he had pushed any of the brand new electrical automobiles and what he considered electrical police vehicles.

“Our automobiles are on the highway 24 hours a day,” he advised me. “We would want two fleets,” he stated, one charging whereas the opposite was in use. That is not inexpensive or sensible for a lot of cities.

Two-seater sports activities vehicles are one other unhealthy match for electrical powertrains. The vary between fees is not nice, and heavy battery packs make pinpoint dealing with and powerful braking difficult.

GM and its companion, Honda — together with different firms reminiscent of Hyundai, Toyota, BMW and Daimler — have been working arduous to scale back the scale and enhance the facility output of hydrogen gasoline cells, which generate electrical energy to energy the electrical motors that drive automobiles. Gaseous hydrogen shouldn’t be as energy-dense as gasoline, however it may well rapidly fill a tank. And hydrogen gasoline cells have one other benefit over battery packs: They weigh much less.

So, this is my prediction for the way forward for the inner combustion engine: We’ll see gasoline and diesel engines proceed their retreat from most passenger vehicles. In heavier automobiles, we’ll see extra gasoline- electrical hybrid powertrains. These will ultimately give method to hydrogen gasoline cell powertrains — when the fueling infrastructure develops and because the know-how turns into extra inexpensive.

Chevrolet this yr is launching an all-new, 5.5-liter double-overhead-cam V-8 within the Corvette Z06 that makes 670 hp.

It is an ideal instance of why gasoline engines will likely be round for not less than one other decade.

The Z06 is anticipated to have an EPA score of twenty-two mpg and may journey so far as 407 miles on its 18.5-gallon gasoline tank. At most gasoline stations, the Z06’s tank may be stuffed in lower than 5 minutes.