An electric car is, quite simply, a car that is powered by electricity. An electric vehicle having an electric motor and a control unit for energizing the motor. The energy is stored in its rechargeable batteries, switched from household electricity again. That the electric car is 170 years old may sound surprising, but electric cars precede cars with internal combustion engine. At the beginning of the electric car was the more popular, but do not exist at the time a battery, it would move a car with much speed or over a long distance. But the electric car still face the same - fundamental - problems.
Electric cars are starting to come back to the forefront of the media to talk and this time the technology is better and improve batteries. Electric car models, I'm sure, will eventually serve as a viable option to conventional combustion-powered vehicles in the near future. Just as obvious that "near future" is still open for discussion. While electric-car technology has significantly over the last two decades, there are still two major sticking points preventing the wider use of electric cars improved:
Battery technology, especially the capacity and the charging regime.
Cost.This article is an attempt to address the first of these problems in a simple easy to understand way.Battery Technology Batteries store electricity in a chemical form, in a closed system energy. They can be recharged and used as a power source in equipment or in our case again; electric cars. The technology of the batteries has to lithium ion moves from lead-acid, with its inherent advantages of lightweight and high open circuit voltage. It is a further advantage that it can be produced in a variety of shapes and sizes, so that the installation is easier in an irregular volume can be found in a car is. The last advantage is that they have no memory and no scheduled cycling is required to prolong the battery life. The manufacturers are relentlessly improving lithium-ion technology with new and improved chemical compounds.
The disadvantages are the cost and availability of lithium and thus the batteries themselves, and the life expectancy of such batteries.
An exciting new development in battery technology is the use of carbon nanotubes. These are sub microscopic structures. They are only billionths of a meter in diameter. Carbon nanotubes resemble honeycombs. Scientists examining the properties of these for several years and have found that nanotube material can have the property of a capacitor with unusually high energy density. Quite how long it takes to take these to be translated into a free (and cheap) battery, which can be used in an electric car is anyone's guess.
The second question connected batteries is how we recharge it?Due to the short range - less than 100 miles with the current technology - and the lack of charging facilities the use of electric cars is necessarily limited. I believe that electrics will serve a niche market for local control of a few people. It will not commute the needs of people with long distances or even local on-the-road workers. While I will probably reach only 5 miles drive to work and back every day or 10 miles to the grocery store or the gym, visiting friends and family at a distance. Moreover, even if the expected range of my electric car would be 100 miles between charges, because of the lack of suitable charging stations I risk reluctant by running out of power before I could return home. As urbanization continues, the electric car will travel for city, where the distances are short and the range of an electric car must be several times a day the mileage.
What is the solution? The technology to make an electric car that can be recharged almost anywhere, is already here - it just has not made to market. The proposal to create a "charging stations" seems to have missed the point. Just plug it into your home outlet and leave it overnight.
Another solution might be possible that as a concept is the short battery that can be replaced with "power stations" as we pull in to the gas stations and the attendant simply swap your battery with a charged one. This could be the solution to the long distance road transport.
A final point to note is that this power is not free - it must be somewhere and sometime costs are made. We will need additional power generation and wind, solar or other renewable energy sources are needed. Many want nuclear but while this is a very safe form of energy, it suffers from several drawbacks - but that's another topic for another day.
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