Electric cars Blog

March 4th, 2009 by admin

Buying a new car is big and expensive decision for most people, and with the ever rising oil price it is becoming a more and more expensive affair to own your own car too. With an oil price that works in a way so that a rain in north America raises the price people in Finland pays for gasoline from Russia, it is not strange that the market is eager to be offered more economical cars.

As if that were not enough, we are today well aware that the large scale use of fossil fuel like oil is very bad for the environment. Getting rid of all gasoline powered engines would be great for the environment.

All of the above has resulted in a new breed of cars being rapidly developed. These cars combine the best features of the electric cars with that of conventional, gasoline powered cars. These type of cars are called hybrid cars, and you are likely to hear a lot about them in the very near future.

An electric car with a twist

The electric car first sounded like a great idea, since it has no emissions while it runs. However, this is only partially true as the total emissions depends on how the electricity for the electric car is produced - if it comes from a coal plant for example, it isn’t very clean at all.

Furthermore, the storage of large amounts of electricity is problematic at best and in practise turns electric cars to pure bread city cars. At least with the ways we currently store electricity.

Hybrid cars combine an electric engine with a gasoline powered one, which means the use of gasoline isn’t totally out of the picture but it can be greatly reduced. The dual engines also allow for smaller engines to be used, and they take advantage of things like regenerative breaking.

Naturally the hybrid cars are also extremely lightweight and aerodynamically well designed, all to reduce the energy needed to run them. In slow city traffic the conventional engine is automatically shut of completely, producing no emissions whatsoever. When more speed and power is needed, the conventional engine is allowed to seamlessly kick in partially or fully.

Hybrid cars are here NOW

Like much of the car market today, it is the Japanese who have been fastest to develop attractive looking hybrid vehicles, such as the hybrid powered Honda Accord and Toyota Prius. Contrary to what one might believe, these cars have also fared very well on the market.

The idea of saving on gas is obviously appealing to a lot of people.

Most well established North American manufacturers are also expected to jump on the bandwagon of this lucrative market very soon. Many of them, including Acura cars, Aero cars, Audi cars, Bentley cars, BMW cars, Cadillac cars, Chevrolet cars, Chrysler cars, Daewoo cars, Dodge cars, Ford cars, Honda cars, Hummer cars, Jaguar cars, Land Rover cars, Lexus cars have in fact already launched hybrid powered version of some of their models.

As this is a quickly expanding market, you can expect to see many of these cars appearing more commonly at local car dealers. As this is considered cutting edge technology, one can expect the initial prices to be rather high though. But then again, a hybrid car will mean considerable savings on buying gas. As the competition will no doubt be stiff, it will be interesting to see how the pricing of these cars develop during the next few years.

February 17th, 2009 by admin

The homemade electric car has become the alternative solution to the conventional car due to the pollution and possible harm it could cause mother nature. It has been known that the so-called EV or Electric Vehicle, alternative energy was reanimated because of this threat. Apparently, for those technical persons gifted with innovative hearts and minds, they still consider electric cars established models. Despite the problem they encountered as a negative effect of the electric car innovation, they remained pursuant of the endeavor. Challenged by these negative results, these innovators, particularly, the automakers, came up with the decision to design cars with inward inflammable engines using fossil fuel, which is known to be a limited energy source.

The good thing about this electric car innovation is that even your old model cars and trucks can still be modified and be made even more useful. Aside from the fact that you were able to make use of your soon-to-be junks, you also save more from it. Save your old resources; save on petroleum products, and most importantly, save more money. Though, you may consider the issue of not being so knowledgeable about engine mechanics. What if you do not know how to do this science project? Well, in that case, you need to take a look around and find someone who knows how.

Lots of people around are becoming so interested in how engines work. There are lots of machine enthusiasts who have acquired the knowledge and are capable of innovating homemade versions of electric cars. You are always free to seek assistance from these people. Of course, you do need to pay a one-time charge for the effort but at least the output is worth your money. If you are an enthusiastic beginner who loves to become part of these innovative automakers, take time to learn the basics on how engines work.

The fact that making a hybrid car is just bundling it with 12 volts of batteries for cars; you also have to find ways on how to power them up using smaller types of engines - enough to keep your car on the go. Analyzing diagrams and wirings is already important for you to know the “how’s” and “where’s” of hybrid car structures. Online websites also offer relevant articles to help you. If you hesitate to do it with your own self-study method, then you can avail of a kit for building electric cars available in the market. With this, you can follow the given instructions and procedures as your guide and then convert your car into an innovative electric car! These kits, if followed properly, will give you very satisfying outputs with your own and original homemade electric car.

January 7th, 2009 by admin

There is much in the news these days over the need for alternative energy sources for cars. While there have always been a number of benefits to alternate fuel sources, the current outrageous spikes in gasoline prices have led to increased public desire for an alternative to purchasing gasoline. At an average of $3 a gallon, an individual who burns two gallons of gas on the way to work and an additional two gallons on the way back is spending $12 a day. That equals $60 a week which translates into $3,000 a year. That is quite a bit of money and when one considers the fact that gasoline was only $1.40 a gallon a decade ago, the spike in prices is somewhat outrageous. This is why there has been renewed and increased interest in electric cars and hybrid cars. From this there has derived obvious questions that have morphed into a debate over the merits of hybrid vs electric cars.

Hybrid cars are cars that can burn regular gasoline as well as ethanol fuel. (Ethanol is a non-oil based fuel that comes from corn) Electric cars are cars that operate on a rechargeable battery. Several years ago, prototype electric cars were offered on the marketplace, but the cars failed for a number of reasons. General Motors is planning on launching the sleek and sexy Volt in 2010, and BMW is working on a hydrogen powered engine they say will be ready in less than ten years. There are rumors that Mercedes-Benz cars plans on eliminating gas powered engines from its entire fleet by 2015. That is a pretty bold effort, but one that is surely needed.

There are a number of problems that currently exist that can preclude the advancement of the electric car in the marketplace. These problems, however, may be corrected over time, but at present, these problems are restricting the growth of the electric car in the marketplace. The problems include the following: the amount of miles that on can drive a car on the capacity of the current design of electric batteries are fairly limited and there are very few charging stations in the United States that can re-charge a car when the battery dies.

Needless to say, it would be fairly difficult to drive a car long distances or even up and back to work if the electric car was susceptible to running out of power and the ability to recharge the car was limited. Additionally, any repairs that may be necessary can be somewhat difficult to have performed because it may be difficult to find a repairman who understands the complexity of an electric car. Upon examining these potential problems, hybrids have an edge in the hybrid vs electric car debate. While the hybrid vs electric car debate between which is the best has not yet been decided, it would seem the edge leans towards toward hybrids.