Automotive Journal

The idea of electric cars has not been developed recently, and in fact successful electric vehicles were being developed and manufactured back in the 1830s, with projects in the Netherlands, and in Scotland, achieving great success, with vehicles reaching speeds of up to 65 miles per hour. Mostly popular with ladies, the typical town vehicle was clean, quiet, needed no cranking to get started, and cruised at a comfortable 20 miles an hour. The gas powered cars were being outsold quite dramatically.

Today the average person may still think of electric cars as being either a very new idea which may or may not catch on, or imagine that all electric cars are like milk floats or golf carts - rickety old vehicles which are so slow that the average child on a scooter can beat them into town. However, with cars like the Tesla Roadster overtaking a Mercedes SL550 with comfort, and leaving the poor old gas guzzling Ferrari Spider standing at the lights wondering what happened, popular opinion and understanding is changing. With a top speed of 130 miles per hour and a round trip of 250 miles easily manageable on a three hour charge, this is hardly a golf cart.

It is easy to assume that the single most important advantage from using electric powered vehicles is the reduction of pollution to the environment through the burning of fossil fuels, but another advantage is the reduction of noise pollution, all too often forgotten. Our urban life reverberates to the hum and growl of hundreds of gas powered vehicles, and we have come to accept this. However, electric cars have the capability of eliminating almost all of the noise associated with cars, and this can only be an advantage. Some people have speculated that silent, or virtually silent vehicles may prove hazardous to those who may not be as aware of oncoming traffic when crossing roads, such as children or the elderly.

It isn’t only the fact that those who buy and use electric powered vehicles can sleep easy at night knowing that they are doing their bit for the environment. To really be appealing to the average consumer it has to make financial sense as well as environmental sense, and in this regard electric vehicles can score very highly. For example, for a mere fraction of the cost of the average car you can purchase a G-Wiz, which sits snugly in the lowest bracket for road insurance, and is also exempt from road tax. With two hundred recharging stations across the UK, keeping it running is easy, and if you live in London there’s a huge advantage because you are allowed to park for free, as well as being exempt from the congestion charges. This alone can represent a saving of over 5,000 per year, which is more than the cost of the car!

On a larger scale, Israel has launched a scheme called Project Better Place and it is the intention of this scheme to make Israel completely oil free within just ten years. With half a million re-charging points across the country, and with top distances for vehicles between charges reaching two hundred kilometres - easily enough to travel from any point of Israel to any other within the country, this is a practical reality. The model being put forward is not unlike that for mobile phones, with the suggestion that the vehicles are given away free, and that instead of paying for fuel and tax in the normal way, drivers can choose various plans, such as pay-as-you-go options for recharging costs, to buying credit for unlimited mileage for a certain period of time, and so on.

As with any new development, the ultimate success relies heavily on consumer demand, and companies piloting electric vehicle schemes are trying hard to win that consumer demand and interest. With electric vehicles being showcased in Hollywood, such as the Lexus driven by Tom Cruise in Minority Report, people are starting to realise that the future isn’t a world full of milk floats, but of slick and powerful cars that anyone would be proud to drive. With the US home to nearly eight million electric vehicles, consumer demand is very much a voice loud enough to have caught the ears of politicians.

Many people have raised concerns regarding the apparent green option which electric vehicles represent, citing the fact that they still need to be charged, and that this electricity comes from power companies burning fossil fuels. This is not entirely true, as there are an increasing number of companies and facilities generating green energy, either partly or in full. However, even if the power does come from burning fossil fuels, there is still an advantage, since it’s all about the conversion ratio of fuel to energy. Burning fossil fuel in a car is highly inefficient, whereas using fossil fuel to generate electricity which is used for electric vehicles is a far more efficient use of that energy, and therefore will result in far less fossil fuel being required.

Perhaps it is becoming increasingly easy to picture a world in which we can glide around quietly and serenely, with no smog or fumes choking our streets, no noise roaring through our urban spaces, and no need for concern when stuck in traffic that fuel is being wasted. Although fears have been raised that when we all return home for work and plug our cars in for the night we’ll overload the mains grid, these too have been quashed, with energy companies pointing out that only a fraction of capacity is reached at night, and with all of us switching to electric cars the overall need for energy will be massively reduced. Perhaps we can even envisage a day when our cars are recharged from the energy our own solar panel roofs collect through the day whilst we are at work - a recipe for a virtually clear conscience.