What are Electric Cars?

Electric cars (or Battery Electric Cars) utilize electrical energy for motion instead of relying on energy generated by burning fuel. Batteries are the main source of energy, and are used to power electric motors in order to produce wheel or axle movement

History of Electric Cars

In the mid-19th century Robert Anderson, a Scottish businessman, came up with the early version of an electric vehicle that more or less resembles the carriage that was popular in his time. This car came before the invention and perfection of cars that run on gasoline and diesel. Robert Anderson's invention is thus considered to be one of the earliest forms of automobiles.

In the mid-20th century, the technology for storage batteries was greatly improved due to the independent efforts of Gaston Plante and Camille Faure. This made battery-powered or electric-driven vehicles a good option for vehicles and increased the industry's interest in such technology especially in Europe.

The world's interest in electric vehicles started declining with the advent of internal combustion engines and escalated petroleum or fossil fuel discovery and extraction. Fossil fuels such as diesel and gasoline were much cheaper alternatives when compared to electric cars. The costly production of storage batteries that have comparably limited capabilities was a large factor in the decline of the electric car's popularity.

How do Electric Cars Work?

Electric cars depend solely on batteries. As such, the components of the Battery Electric Car greatly differ from the parts of a car with an internal combustion engine. Battery Electric Cars usually have three main components namely; the controller, the battery, and the electric motor.

In a Battery Electric Car, the accelerator pedal is connected to a potentiometer which measures the force that the driver has applied on the pedal. The potentiometer then sends a signal to a controller that tells it how much energy the battery should give the electric motor.

The batteries used in electric cars are rechargeable and usually come in these forms or variants:

Nickel-Cadmium (NiCd)
Lead-acid (both Valve Regulated Lead Acid or otherwise)
Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH)
Lithium Ion (LiON)
Lithion-ion polymer

Battry power output is measured in terms of kilo-watt hours (KWh) that denote how much energy a certain rechargeable battery will be able to store or produce.

Advantages

When compared with cars that use internal combustion engines, the battery electric car is much cleaner when it comes to tail pipe emissions. The electric car does not require any combustion to be able to generate energy and so, no gaseous emission will be produced.

Issues

In most cases, the energy that is needed to charge the batteries of the car is generated from power plants which burn fossil fuels to produce the electricity. This has posed some concerns due to the possible increase in energy demand that the electric car batteries will require.