Electric cars Blog

September 30th, 2008 by admin

If electric cars were readily available, of course we would all know about them, and where to get them. The reality is that the major automobile manufacturers do not sell EVs. So we have to look elsewhere. In truth, most of the electric vehicles on the road today were built by hobbyists or small entrepreneurs. In the links section at the bottom, you will find some of these people, and the cars that they sell.

The majority of these cars are converted gasoline cars. An old car with a poor engine but a good body is obtained cheaply. The engine, and all gasoline components are stripped out, and a new electric drivetrain is installed. You might decide to convert a car you already own - or buy a car which has already been converted. The good news is that an electric car of this type can be obtained for as little as $5000. Prices almost never get as high as $20,000.

Most of these cars will be based on old battery technology, as the new tech batteries are protected by patents that make it hard for the small businessmen to deal with. But you will still be able to drive at freeway speeds in cars that accelerate and handle well. Your driving range may be limited to less than 100 miles, or even less than 50 miles. But cars like this are still fine for most commuting and day-to-day driving tasks.

A gasoline engine and its associated components are made up of thousands of parts. Every part represents the possibility of a breakdown. This situation is far different in an electric vehicle. Electric motors have only ONE moving part. There is no maintenance needed on an electric motor. No filters, oil changes, coolant, NOTHING.

You have electric motors all over your house - in your clothes washer/dryer, refrigerator, air conditioner, can opener, blender, and on and on. Appliances do break - but when was the last time the electric motor itself was to blame? There is almost nothing in the technology world more reliable than an electric motor. This is why EVs last a long time, and have very high resale values.

How about the batteries? Yes, of course batteries have a limited life, and need periodic replacement. The oldest battery technology is lead-acid. In a typical EV, a lead-acid battery pack might last for 20 thousand miles. The pack in my EV, which consists of 16 batteries, costs me about $800 to replace. That works out to about 4 cents per mile. Add to that the typical electricity cost per mile of 1.5 cents, and our total operating cost is only 5.5 cents per mile.Just like a regular car, you will need periodic brake and suspension work - but if your EV has regenerative braking, which uses the electric motor to brake the car - your brake pads will last much, much longer that they would on a standard auto.

A common criticism of hybrid electric cars is that they only move pollution from the tailpipe to the power plant. In other words, since power plants still burn dirty fuel, there will still be pollution. First, only about half the electricity created comes from burning coal, but this is still our major pollution worry. Only 3% comes from oil.
Electric cars charge mostly at night. There is currently enough wasted electricity and excess capacity for millions of electric cars, before more plants will need to be built. No new pollution will be created by using electricity that otherwise goes to waste. Adding electric vehicles to the grid increases coal pollution very little.

But how about when new or used electric cars catch on, and new plants have to be built? But even if they are coal plants, the newest designs for coal generated electrical plants are up to 80% efficient, far more efficient than a typical sub-25% efficient gasoline engine. Greater efficiency means more miles on less fuel, and therefore less pollution per mile.

But even if all the above were not true, electric cars would still produce much less pollution than gas cars, because of the greater efficiency of electric drive (electric motor, 95% efficient, versus gas engine, 25% efficient.) Delivering energy by wire to electric cars (95% efficient) is also much, much more efficient than trucking gas to thousands of service stations.

The proof of all this is right in the fuel prices. Gasoline costs at least 14 cents per mile, and can run higher than 30 cents per mile, depending on the vehicle and gas prices. Electric cars drive around for only a penny or two per mile. The difference comes mainly from efficiency. Much greater efficiency = much less pollution.

Believe it or not, your gas car also uses electricity. It’s true, large amounts of electricity are used to refine gasoline. Gasoline makes pollution during refining, it makes pollution when it’s being delivered to gas stations, and it makes pollution when you use it.

Incidentally, hydrogen fuel-cell cars are also electric cars, including batteries, which are needed for acceleration. But they are less efficient than battery-powered cars, because of the extra electricity required to extract the hydrogen, and the wasted energy of transporting hydrogen to service stations. Fuel cell vehicles will always be more expensive than pure electric cars, because they are electric cars with a fuel cell added on.