Electric Cars:Why they make sense...

With the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf being less than a year away and other vehicles scheduled in 2011, electric vehicles may finally make a difference in how much oil we need to consume. Electric vehicles are actually nothing new. In fact, the first automobiles were created in 1800's were electric before gas powered cars. Moving to electric powered vehicles offers several advantages.

• They are far cheaper to operate. A Chevy Volt needs 8 kilowatt hours to go 40 miles before its on board gas generator kicks in. 8 kilowatt hours costs about 50 to 80 cents in Austin. Compared to a 25 mpg sedan will need 1.6 gallons of gasoline. At $2.50/gallon that's $4 of gasoline to go the same 40 miles. The reason for this is electric motors are 4 times more efficient than gas engines. In an internal combustion engine, about 80% of the energy is wasted as heat. It is not uncommon for electric motors to operate at efficiencies above 90%. In other words, most of the energy you put into a gas engine is wasted as heat, while electric motors turn almost all of the energy into forward motion.
• Gasoline only comes from crude oil. Electricity is generated from a variety of sources including gasoline, diesel, natural gas, coal, nuclear, wind, solar, hydro, and even exotic method like capturing the ocean currents. Basically any method that can be used to turn a turbine can be used to generate electricity.
• Electric vehicles don't pollute. While it is true that 60% of the electricity produced in the United States is from coal which do pollute, generating power at a central power plant is far more efficient than millions of individual vehicles burning fuel. Also, the pollution emitted by power plants is often located away from urban centers, so the pollution that does get emitted does less harm to people. As more electricity is generated from clean sources (i.e. wind, solar, hydro) or cleaner fossil fuels (i.e. natural gas instead of coal) we have chance to significantly reduce air pollution and that will improve the health of all of us.
• Electric motors have far higher performance compared to similarly sized gasoline engines. It is not even close. If we used a similar sized electric motor as gas engines today, it would generate enough torque to shred the tires off most vehicles. Electric motors generate so much torque that they do not need complex transmissions. A simple single speed transmission would be enough. Today's cars have complex 5, 6, and even 7 speed transmissions to keep the gas engine in a narrow operating speed. In contrast, a Tesla Roadster does 0-60 mph in under 4 seconds. There is no shifting. It has a single speed transmission. In addition, electric motors are nearly silent offering a quiet, smooth ride. There is no exhaust system to control noise because the motor generates no noise or exhaust further simplifying the drivetrain.
• The maintenance on an all electric vehicle is far less because of its simplicity.
• Nearly one half of our trade deficit is due to oil imports. Most of this oil comes from politically unstable parts of the world or nations that are not friendly to the United States. Cutting our oil usage would go a long way to improving our fiscal budget and political situations. Compared to oil, electricity is generated almost entirely from local energy sources, whether it is coal, natural gas, hydro, wind, nuclear, etc.

So given all these advantages, why is it that electric vehicles are only now just starting to come to the market? The answer is the battery. Current battery technology is the Achilles Heel of electric vehicles. The three major drawbacks of batteries are:

• Weight. A gallon of gasoline weighs about 6 lbs. A battery that stores the same amount of energy contained in a gallon of gasoline would weigh ~600 lb. and would be incredibly expensive. Fortunately electric motors don't need to carry as much onboard energy as a gas engine because of its efficiency. But this still severely limits an electric vehicles range and speed. Putting a large enough battery to match the range of a gas powered vehicle would simply make it too heavy and expensive. This is why electric vehicles are thought to be slow. Putting a large, high performance motor in an electric vehicle would simply shorten the range to an unacceptable level.
• Refueling. Once the battery is depleted it takes several hours to recharge the battery. Meanwhile, a 5 minute stop at a gas station means the gas powered vehicle can go another 300-400 miles. You are always worried about being stranded in an electric vehicle. It is also difficult to find an electrical outlet nearby most public parking spaces. This makes it unsuitable for long distance trips especially in remote areas.
• Cost. Storing energy in batteries is still very expensive compared with stored energy as fossil fuels. Electric vehicles are far more expensive than equivalent gas powered ones. But the operating costs are far lower. As the technology and economies of scale improves, we will see electric vehicles close the gap to their gas counterparts.  

The Chevy Volt attempts to solve this problem by having a small battery to keep the weight and cost at an acceptable level, but large enough for most day to day use. The gasoline engine never powers the car directly. It acts as a generator for the electric motors once the batteries are exhausted. This means you have a car that is fully electric most of the time, but you don't need to worry about being stranded once your batteries are dead as long as you have gas in the tank just as in a regular car. If you exceed the 40 mile electric range, you have fuel economy similar to a gas hybrid vehicle. If done correctly, this and other electric vehicle that are coming have the potential to drastically reduce our gasoline consumption.