An electric car is an automobile propelled by one or more electric motors that use electrical energy that is stored in batteries, that then projects the power through electric motors towards the drive train of the vehicle.
The first electric cars appeared in the 1880s, electric cars were popular in the 20th century and earlier in the 19th century until the common combustion engines were made for mass production and petrol was cheaper to use than electric.
During the 1970’s and 1980’s the energy crisis hit which stopped the electric vehicle in its tracks.
Fast forward to 2008 when a renaissance in electric vehicle manufacturing occurred due to advances in battery technology power, technology management and also concerns about increasing oil prices and not to mention the need of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Since 2008 many governments, local authorities and countries have given tax breaks, tax benefits and government grants to help the electric vehicle market grow and to reduce the aforementioned in an effort to reduce greenhouse gases and CO2 emissions.
Benefits Of Electric Cars
There are many benefits for electric cars, a significant drop in air pollution due to no tailpipe pollutants, is of significant importance. Greenhouse gases and other such emissions are greatly reduced like in the case of BMW’s I range where BMW build these cars with as much eco-friendly components as they can and their factory units are solar powered reducing fossil power and their carbon footprint by half from the very start of the production stage.
The other benefits of electric cars in 2014 is that we now have a new kid on the block in Tesla motors, these pure electric cars have a range of up to 300 miles per charge. Tesla are licensing patents on its technology to the other motor industry giants to try and push and achieve an increased range for all new electric cars.
Other benefits are FREE Road Tax and a £5000 grant from the Government towards a new electric car. Also if you live in the UK and travel of an average of 720 miles a week this will only cost you, as of November 2014, £27, now that’s got to be a benefit.
Plug-In Electric (Hybrid) Cars
During the 21st century the biggest demand is in the plug-in electric car as these vehicles have a better range and are more practical for the average business person who has to travel more than 100 miles per day. Furthermore, due to the better known range anxiety the production of plug-in electric cars has been fuelled from the beginning of 2008.
However, from 2010 a new dawn had appeared with the cars such as the Chevrolet Volt, Vauxhall Ampera, Mitsubishi Outlander in 2014, and the BMW i3 range extender in 2013. These cars have taken the electric car format and generally had an engine of small capacity working as a generator to keep the batteries recharged, which then ultimately gives you a bigger range scope.
Another benefit to plug-in electric cars is that you can now achieve 290 mpg, which as we know from the prices at the pumps, as of November 2014, a gallon of petrol would cost £6.00 on average. So as we can see this is a massive reason to go and purchase a plug-in hybrid car.
Charging Plug-In and Pure Electric Cars
This is very easy nowadays with the capability to charge from your own home also with superchargers across the UK and other charging facilities across the UK. By 2020 the European Union has said that the UK must have a minimum of 60,000 electric car charging points, bearing in mind that this is only six years away we feel that you will be in safe hands to charge your car at any time no matter where you live in the UK by 2014.
So the locations can be;
A home charger which is discreetly placed on one of your outside walls, on a shed or in your garage.
From a charging station across the network of UK roads, in supermarkets, at supercharging stations from Tesla, from fire stations,from other government locations to park-and-ride’s, airports and anywhere else that can fit one.
These chargers are dependent on the power unit, a charge can take anything from 30 minutes to 8 hours to fully charge your car, however, the average time to charge a Pure Electric Car nowadays is down to 4 hours in many cases. If you travel less than 100 miles a day and you sleep for four to eight hours a night you can have a fully charged car without ever having to go to a petrol station again and waste time at the pump.
With a plug-in hybrid it is much the same, however, you can obviously travel a lot more than 100 miles a day, in fact you could travel up to 1000 as these vehicles are not dependent on being plugged in to a power unit.