Hybrid/Electric Vehicles
Why electric vehicles?
Electric vehicles are better vehicles.
Simplicity - Electric cars have 70% fewer moving parts than internal combustion engine cars. No ignition, gas tank, oil filter, catalytic converter, or muffler, to name a few unneeded parts. There's less to go wrong, so less to service and a longer life: no oil changes or tune-ups. Since the regenerative braking systems helps slow down the car, brakes get used less and need replacing less often. Except for attention to a few components, like rotating the tires, there's relatively little work to be done on electric cars.
Efficiency - Electric vehicles us less energy than gasoline vehicles. Electric drive systems are able to convert more of the available energy into the force that propels the car, wasting less energy and requiring less energy to go the same distance as a gasoline car. In addition the use of regenerative breaking eliminates the wasted energy that is normally converted to heat from friction. And, under a "wells-to-wheels" comparison, which accounts for the energy used to make the fuel (electricity or gasoline), the energy loss in transporting the fuel, and the energy used to run the car, it is estimated that an electric car requires only about one-third of the energy required by a gasoline-powered car for comparable performance.
Cost - Driving on electricity costs one-quarter to one-half of the cost of fueling conventional cars or hybrids because driving on electricity is more efficient and electricity is less expensive than gasoline - even with oil at $40 per barrel. In terms of sticker price, electric cars and hybrids have been more expensive, mainly because they have never been mass-produced and the cost of batteries has also been high, again because they have not been produced in sufficiently large quantities to reach a scale of production that would lower costs. The mass production of hybrids, however, has started to reduce the cost of many of the electrical components and that trend should continue as plug-in hybrids and electric cars hit the market. Despite the higher initial cost consumers still save money because the savings in fuel offsets the higher initial sales price.
Emissions - An electric car has no tailpipe because it has no emissions. On a "wells-to-wheels" basis fewer emissions are produced, even when you include the emissions from power plants. It is expected that as the economy turns to renewable and other sources of non-greenhouse gas emitting electrical power generation in the coming years, this emissions advantage will improve further. In addition, emissions are moved away from large population centers to fewer single point power plants, where they are easier to regulate and reduce than trying to control emissions from hundreds of millions of tailpipes.
Power - Modern electric vehicles have plenty of power. The land speed world record for electric vehicles is 271 miles (436 kms) per hour. Many of the new electric sport vehicles can accelerate from zero to 60 miles per hour in under 4 seconds.
Convenience - Both electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids bring the convenience of charging at home, typically overnight.
Noise - You don't need a muffler for an electric car because there's nothing to muffle. No engine, no ignition
The infrastructure is in place
The infrastructure required to switch to electric cars is already in place. The U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory estimates that 84% of cars, trucks and SUV's could be powered by the U.S. electrical grid overnight during off-peak usage without a single additional power plant being built.
The political will is in place
There are a number of driving forces behind the push for electric cars. Among them is the desire to reduce the western world's dependence of foreign oil and increasing worldwide desire to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses.
The U.S. alone:(1)
- consumes 25% of the world's oil supply, yet has only 3% of the global oil reserves.
- spent in excess of $250 billion on foreign oil in 2009.
- imports two thirds of its oil.
- uses two thirds of all oil used in the U.S. directly for transportation. In contrast, only 2% of the U.S.'s electricity is generated from oil.
- 97% of fuel used for U.S. transportation is oil based.
Moving to the forefront of the advances in battery technology is a stated aim of the Obama administration, with the recent stimulus package including $2 billion for battery development.
(1) U.S. Department of Energy, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, T. Boone Pickens and setamericafree.org.
