The end of the combustion engine as we know it?

[RetroPug]

Petrol engines worked 100 years ago but they were very, very shit.

You can't say that, massively different technologies available, if you wanted to you could compare a tiny fiesta engine today to an F1 cars engine, they are still an eon apart, doesn't make one shit however.

Oil running out in our lifetime? I was told it was going to run out in 15 years 20 years ago...

By any measure I can think of, combustion engines from circa 1914 are all terrible by today's standards, and I am very confident in saying this.

you make a good point but it's not the one i'm trying to make, i wasn't saying innovation isn't good, but at this point in time, the people developing newer kinds of engines have to come to terms with the fact that ICE's are a dead-end, and that no amount of 'ooh i can reduce the friction here and make it more efficient there' will get round the fact that oil will run out probably in our lifetime, and that the public will have to make a change to reflect this.
to a certain extent i think that some of the newer technologies like hydrogen aren't taken seriously because companies are still trying to 'innovate' on ICE's, and it'll be too hard to abandon oil

Except in the mean time people are still buying cars with ICEs and expect a better vehicle when they buy a new car. Those technologies are potetially the future but they are not ready for market yet.

Innovation in most fields is driven by market demand. I agree with you in principle but the reason people don't just abandon improvements in ICE engines currently is because people are still buying them and completely viable alternatives are not quite on the market yet.