Cars of the Future

Electric cars run on electricity, which means that they need a battery to store all of it. The inventors who are making these cars are considering using lithium ion batteries, or laptop batteries. These batteries are efficient, charge fast, and can store much more that the regular car battery. Other electricity storing methods, like capacitors, can be used as well. To fill up this battery, you simply must plug the car into a wall outlet. When the driver starts the car, electricity flows from the battery into the electric motor. In a combustion engine, there are many moving parts. In an electric engine, there is a single, moving part, the electric motor.

An electric car’s pedals work a lot different that gas-powered cars. In gas-powered cars, the break pedal stops the wheels by pressing pads down on the axel, creating enough friction to slow the car down. This creates excess heat, which is wasted. The electric car works like this, however, it puts the excess heat to work. It takes the heat and uses it to create more electricity for the motors.

Future cars, like tribrids, will have solar panels or wind turbines to create electricity, thus making the time you have to drive longer before you have to charge again. Also, electric cars let out zero emissions, which is why electric cars are a better fuel to switch to.

Electric Charging Station
Electric cars are the wave of the future. However, one of the many challenges facing electric cars is how the car itself will be able to pull into a fuel station to fill up. Many people are working on ways to make electric charging station possible in the future. For instance, if Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital will fund Epyon to find a way charge electric cars, there may be electric charging stations in the upcoming future. Epyon is a Dutch company that claims that their technology can charge lithium batteries (which are in electric cars) in a matter of minutes instead of it taking hours. By using "state-of-the-art power conversion techniques and smart control systems" combined with high-power lithium ion and lots of storage, the idea of charging electric cars doesn’t seem so impossible anymore. The requirements of each cell within the battery are evaluated and seen through contact between the charger and battery management system (BMS). Also, by using an energy reservoir in the system, Epyon avoids the dilemma of overfilling the grid with extreme demand spikes. Unfortunately, producing such things won’t happen overnight. There are still many things to be done.

In China, electric charging stations have already been planned and are set to be distributed among certain big cities, such as Shanghai and Beijing. The estimate for the cost of each charging station is about $37,000 to about $44,000.
In Tel Aviv, Israel, Project Better Place is a company who is also working on developing an electric charging station.

According to Tesla Motors, their Tesla Roadster takes only 3 ½ hours to charge at home and instead of 60 mpc (miles per charge), with their car you can get 220 mpc. When on the road, there is an additional Mobile Connector that only needs to be plugged in to an outlet and it’s ready to go. There is also a bonus to the Tesla Roadster- regenerative braking. It restores the energy you lose when you slow down. It extends your battery charge even further, delivering higher mpc when driving. It’s like engine breaking with a plus. Whenever you slow down, you send a charge back into the battery. It's a good way to end slowing down at stop signs, traffic jams and red lights.

Electric Cars in Israel
In January 4 2008, the government of Israel announced that it would be creating an electric car network, whereby cars would use very little fossil fuel, thereby becoming less dependent on foreign oil. They are planning to make about 500,000 charging stations across the country, all by the year 2011!
The car companies Renault and Nissan, along with a hi-tech company called Project Better Place, out of Silicon Valley in America, signed a deal to help make the country fuel-free. As a matter of fact, the slogan for this project is “Transportation without fuel, making peace between transportation and the environment.”
This country is not looking for fuel-electric hybrids, but is looking for completely fuel-free cars. The idea came from a man named Shai Agassi, and ecological entrepreneur. He hopes that this project will be the prototype for other countries to follow. According to Carlos Ghosn, President of Renault-Nissan, the electric cars to be used will have zero carbon emissions, zero particle emissions and zero noise! Because Israel is a very small country, the people don’t have to drive very far, so the use of electricity is very appealing. Not only will there not be high gas prices, but hopefully there will be less tension in the region if there is less dependence on foreign oil. There is a question as to whether this can actually take place by 2011, but the desire to achieve it is there. The assumption is that charging stations will be built by 2011, and that all citizens will be driving electric cars by 2020. Now China is even interested in selling their electric cars to Israel, it could be the start of a very interesting solution to burning fossil fuels. At the time of this writing, China’s automotive company BYD was planning on selling electric cars this year, 2009! It would be a five-seater that goes up to speeds of 160 kilometers per hour, about 100 miles per hour in America.
Since this initiative, Project Better Place has also signed deals with San Francisco, Hawaii, Denmark, and Australia, although Israel is the pilot program. Even President Obama has shown interest in this project as we move further into the 21st century. As the recession becomes a bigger factor in people’s lives and the pollution we create is being felt all over the world, hopefully more world leaders will see this as a good idea to investigate and follow through with. We feel that if these pilot programs take off, they set the precedent for other cities and nations to follow. By decreasing our dependence on oil, we as a planet can reduce carbon emissions and definitely help the environment.

Electric Cars History
Just how many cars are on the road today? It’s hard to say, but there’s an estimate that there will be over 1 billion cars by 2025!! Right now the United States is the leader in car ownership with around 235 million cars and we travel about 7 billions miles each day!! We love our cars, but we must, as a nation, come to the conclusion that our dependence on oil is too costly. It is too costly in terms of oil consumption, but also of damaging affects to our environment and our atmosphere. The more we drive, the more we pump more toxic carbon dioxide and emissions from fossil fuels into the air. One of the ways around this cost is to turn to different forms of energy to power our cars. One of the most promising forms is electricity-powered vehicles. Right now there are hybrid cars, but the world could also benefit from an influx of all-electric cars too.

Electric cars are not a new form of transportation. As a matter of fact, the first cars came out in the 1970s when there was an oil embargo, which drove up the price of gasoline, which also led to many shortages. To use an electric car, there has to be a current that is carried from the car’s battery to the motor. The car was very popular but what stopped it from becoming a part of the car industry was that people were not happy with the fact that it only went about 100 miles before it ran out of energy. That meant that it would have to be recharged, and that would take 8 hours, so basically people were very limited in where they could go and how far they could go. Americans need a car that will last longer and have longer range in order for it to be a real choice for consumers. However, if they are the only cars available, they will sell.

The first commercial electric car to come out since the 70s was the EV1, by General Motors. It was put out on the market in 1996, but it didn’t last very long because people didn’t want to wait to charge the battery. Quickly GM took it off the market but, really, should it have? If they had kept it on the market, or tried to update the technology year to year, like other regular cars are, there’s a good chance there would be a market for the car. It’s like the saying, if you build it they will come, if you manufacture it, and it’s what’s available, they will buy.

What America needs is an encompassing policy that mandates that car companies build eco-friendly cars. The advantages are that they cost less to maintain and last longer because they have fewer moving parts. They make less pollution, and considering the option between gas powered cars and electric cars, they create less pollution from power plants as well. There will hopefully be new battery powered cars available with better technology to make people want to buy it. There has to be an electric grid available on highways to allow people to stop, recharge, and keep going, so that electric cars become a real possibility.

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