For several decades now, leftists and envirowhacks have been offering us windmills and kum-bay-ah sessions as alternatives to our real-world energy technologies and infrastructures. Nobody should be surprised that we're still using IC engines and gasoline.
Nonetheless there actually are several alternative energy ideas out there at present which, if put to large-scale use might could make a serious difference:
The Massive Yet Tiny ("Mighty") Engine:
http://www.angellabsllc.com/
http://www.angellabsllc.com/resourse.html
The Evinrude/Bombardier new-gen two stroke (E-TEC):
http://www.evinrude.com/en-US/
The oil from algae idea:
http://green-fab.com/blog/2008/04/23/vertigro-produces-biofuel-from-algae-oil-extracts/
The EESTOR super capacitor:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EEStor
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/05/02/zenn-buys-into-ultra-capacitor-company-eestor/
http://www.zenncars.com/
Carbon fibre, and other space-age materials. The one word you never see in any of these discussions about future vehicle technology is "weight". The small cars of today are typically a thousand pounds heavier than those of 1960 - 1970 and in our present age of super materials, that is unacceptable. Carbon fibre is stronger than steel and at a small fraction of the weight. Arrows made of this stuff can be fired at 400 fps from 75 and 80 lb bows through plywood without harm to the bow or the arrow and cars made of it would regain the thousand pound edge.