Are Electric Cars Really The Future?

I've always been a bit skeptical about electric cars. Charging batteries uses electricity, creating electricity usually means burning fossil fuels. There are some new electric cars on the horizon which do actually promise real environmental savings though.

There is a new range of cars coming to market in late 2009 from Tesla Motors. According to their specs, their roadster is twice as efficient as the Toyota Prius. The car has a 0-60 time of 3.9 seconds, top speed of 125mph and range of 244 miles. This all comes at a cost though - around £94,000 in the UK. The cars are intended to be charged up overnight in the owner's garage, but they can be charged on the move using a charging adaptor.

The environmental impact of using mains power can be overcome by using solar panels installed in the owners home to charge the car. This will obviously add considerably to the bill though.

At the other end of the market are companies like the Nice Car Company. Their cars start from around £12,000, have a top speed of 40mph and range of 60 miles. This means they are ideally suited to a run to the shops, or work, but not big road trips. The batteries are recyclable Lead acid batteries, and with the standard UK mix of Coal, nuclear and renewable then the C0₂/km equates to approximately 60g/ km.

The Better Place concept is to have a standard battery for all electric cars. When you run out of charge, you'd drive up to a 'switch station' and swap your battery for a new one. They have secured deals for switch stations in various locations around the world. The first car manufacturer to produce a model for use with these stations is Renault-Nissan, who plan to launch their car in 2011. Better Place are in talks with other manufacturers to try and get more cars on the road with this capability. They also plan to provide the 'opportunity' for their utilities to use electricity supplied by renewable sources.

What Makes Electric Cars Better Than Petrol Cars? 

With petrol powered cars, there is a lot of energy wasted through heat, most of which isn't converted into any useable energy. Electric cars are very efficient at converting electrical energy to mechanical energy. There is however lot of energy lost in the electricity generation process if oil or gas power stations are used. The waste heat from petrol cars can be used to heat the interior. In electric cars, extra electric power is needed for heating which reduces the mileage.

In the US, electric cars that are run from the grid produce about half the CO₂ of petrol vehicles. This ratio will be different for other countries depending on how their national energy is produced. As the US currently has mostly fossil fueled power stations, the efficiency of electric cars vs petrol will improve as greener sources are used.

Many electric cars use regenerative braking. This technology means instead of converting the braking energy into heat like conventional cars, it is converted back into power which can be used to drive the vehicle. Another benefit of electric cars, is they do not consume power when stood still in traffic like petrol engines.

The disposal of normal car batteries is an environmental concern. The new generation of electric cars use vastly different batteries though. Tesla say that their batteries could be disposed of straight into a landfill, as they contain no toxic materials. They have actually arranged for their batteries to be safely recycled before they have even sold a car.

There has been some safety concerns about the lack of noise generated by electric cars. This is especially worrying for deaf or blind people. Most people use their hearing when crossing the road, and silent cars traveling down residential streets could cause accidents. Some manufacturers have actually used speakers to produce engine noise in their electric cars to overcome this problem.

There are still a lot of improvements to be made to electric car technology. Over the next few years, improved batteries, greener mains power, and better infrastructure will undoubtedly make them a rival to petrol power.

Published - Tue 20th Oct 2009 13:34:35