What do think will be the near future best means of electric power for automobiles?

In the near future I see a continuation of the same for "electric vehicles", e.g., Ni Metal Hydride (as in Toyota Prius) and lithium ion batteries that are the subject of intense research and very close to commercialization.

I suspect that the market over the next 10-20 years will slowly gravitate to Plug In Hybrids for most cars or a system like GM's planned Volt system, e.g., an electric vehicle with an small on board electric generator that runs on gasoline (which to my surprise is actually VERY efficient compared to internal combustion engines with current drive trains).

Everything else, e.g., fuel cells, etc., will take even more years to develop into an appropriate appropriate drive train. Although I suspect that any improved batteries or other electrical storage devices that have high energy storage to weight rations like "ultra capacitors" will be the next generation because they will simply offset batteries in the electric drive trains being developed now.

BTW If you read the projections ... in the near future electric vehicles and plug in hybrids or the volt system will NOT make significant inroads into the market and are expected to be less than 25% of the market for many years to come.

I suspect that gas prices will level off somewhere about $5 per gallon and the US market will get used to it ... plus there will also be increasing competition from ultra efficient diesel engines that Europe now uses.

Its going to be a fun ride though..

I notice that you didn't ask whether such technology would take off and be accepted or to what extent. Therefore, I could see 4 general possibilities extrapolating from the technology we have today. They are

1. electricity being transmitted to the vehicle like is available in subways and trams today.

2. some kind of storage like a chemical battery or capacitor technology that is recognized as relatively inexpensive and reasonably recyclable. Such storage may also be non electrical as if flywheel storage or compressed air were being used.

3. some kind of fuel cell or by extension a chemical reaction. This is only currently used as where pure oxygen is supplied to the fuel cell and cost is no object: in space vehicles.

4. and last produced in some kind of mini plant that is based upon nuclear energy be it fission or fusion. This is the technology currently used in a nuclear submarine or aircraft carrier.

And with all these possibilities the vehicle would essentially be powered by electricity. Of these only the third is only used where cost is no object in an area that tends to inspire. (Space)

The first would be available with today's technology and a lot of new infrastructure and it may be the cheapest alternative in some situations. It may require some kind of standardized pickup in all new vehicles and will certainly be used in new transit systems as the cheapest alternative.

The second also seems to have a potential to work even with today's technology and be economical if combined wth a genset trailer as a sometimes series hybrid for increased range.

But both of these alternatives would require a will and a vision that has been sometimes lacking when societies develop.

The third possibility offers no change in our vision or way of doing business if only the technology could be done economically which at present seems a more distant future.

And the last is a power hungry peoples dream for the present if not their long term future.

I would hope that as a people we would tend to grow as our technology grows and this would be a prayer for solutions 1 or 2. The sad reality is that this is not the case and we are probably looking at solutions like numbers 4 and 3. For the near future, I would have to say that due to the vast increase in recent investment, #2 seems likely (fuel cells on the other hand had the political nod an investment that has recently been decreased.)

Either 1,3 or 4 may become available in more distant future if we dare go out far enough.

You could use the electricity to disassociate carbon monoxide from CO2 and hydrogen fron H2O, then use the resulting gases in an FT reactor to produce synthetic gasoline which could then be delivered in existing infrastructure to existing vehicles for use. This is the basis of the Sandia Labs CR5 reactor.

Chemically storing the energy in the form of synthetic gasoline results in a volumetric energy density 40 times higher than that possible with lithium ion batteries plus unlike a battery, the spent chemicals aren't carried around as dead weight but just expelled into the atmosphere where presumably they originally came from.

You actually dis-miss the demanded re-set of your character, implied and consented, by your local subversive council? These councils only convene to display their acumen for attaining total control of those who are willing to submit all control, of them selves, to the self-professed actuary's of insane statutory.