Electric Vehicles
Good Show or No Go?
Garret Laskowski
Issue date: 8/20/08 Section: Opinion
Planning to buy a new car after graduation? Looking for something sporty but still has good gas mileage? Then maybe an electric vehicle (EV) is for you; or maybe not. With the price of gas skyrocketing, electric vehicles are coming more into view, and the first wave is scheduled to come out in Fall 2009 to Spring 2010. Included in this first wave are the Chevy Volt, Tesla, ZAP Alias, Dodge ZEO, Chrysler ecoVoyager, and the Jeep Renegade. There are a few other companies, such as Nissan, Toyota, and Honda, working on all electric plug-in vehicles, but they do not have any set production dates or names as of July 2008.
So you might be wondering why you would want to buy an electric vehicle. Why would you want to get rid of the power and passion of a V8, or the cost and range of using a gas powered four cylinder? For starters, electric vehicles have fewer parts than gas vehicles because the engine is mechanically incredibly simple. In addition, for all the green people, there are no emissions and the energy conversion efficiency is around 90% (gas vehicles around 20%). They can be minutely controlled by microcontrollers to provide more torque, speed, or a fair balance without the need for matching power gears with different gearboxes and torque converters. For most EVs, there are three main components to the drive system: the energy storage system, motor, transmission, and power electronics module. As far as the power source, electricity is multisource and available nationwide. Most of the new EVs will also be plug-in for 110V outlets. There is also an incentive from the government of a refund of 10% of the vehicle's cost up to $4000.
Even though all these advantages are quite amazing, there is an equal amount of drawbacks. EV's have a limited range because they use low density batteries, they have long recharge times (especially compared to refueling a gas vehicle), the US national grid is currently not meeting demands because it is under funded, and the main source of electricity generation is fossil fuels. The cars also are quite expensive running from $29,900 to well over $100,000. There are also some other issues to take into consideration. How quickly will the US enhance the national electricity grid? How much time/power will it take to charge the vehicle fully? It is helpful that the vehicles have fewer parts and they are said to last longer, but how long will they last and how costly will repairs be? How costly will it be to charge your vehicle (since they use 110V wall outlets)?
So you might be wondering why you would want to buy an electric vehicle. Why would you want to get rid of the power and passion of a V8, or the cost and range of using a gas powered four cylinder? For starters, electric vehicles have fewer parts than gas vehicles because the engine is mechanically incredibly simple. In addition, for all the green people, there are no emissions and the energy conversion efficiency is around 90% (gas vehicles around 20%). They can be minutely controlled by microcontrollers to provide more torque, speed, or a fair balance without the need for matching power gears with different gearboxes and torque converters. For most EVs, there are three main components to the drive system: the energy storage system, motor, transmission, and power electronics module. As far as the power source, electricity is multisource and available nationwide. Most of the new EVs will also be plug-in for 110V outlets. There is also an incentive from the government of a refund of 10% of the vehicle's cost up to $4000.
Even though all these advantages are quite amazing, there is an equal amount of drawbacks. EV's have a limited range because they use low density batteries, they have long recharge times (especially compared to refueling a gas vehicle), the US national grid is currently not meeting demands because it is under funded, and the main source of electricity generation is fossil fuels. The cars also are quite expensive running from $29,900 to well over $100,000. There are also some other issues to take into consideration. How quickly will the US enhance the national electricity grid? How much time/power will it take to charge the vehicle fully? It is helpful that the vehicles have fewer parts and they are said to last longer, but how long will they last and how costly will repairs be? How costly will it be to charge your vehicle (since they use 110V wall outlets)?
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Elliot
posted 9/02/08 @ 6:43 PM EST
I think that's mostly true. Electric vehicles may be the future...but we're not in the future yet.
Extreme Euphoria-- Self Improvement
posted 2/22/09 @ 2:04 AM EST
I have heard that there are vehicles that are partly electric and partly gas. Maybe for now they are a better alternaive. I think that the gas is mostly to keep the battery charged in these vehicles. (Continued…)
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