Electicity cars?

Question

does someone know more about this kind of cars... i heard the idea recently and i am curious :)

Answer 1

Ok, get ready to be inundated with information.

Before I give you a barrage of links, I will give you my own "one-paragraph" explanation of what an electric car is and how it works. An electric car uses electricity as its primary source of energy. This energy is usually stored in a rather large battery pack. The vehicle's drive train and transmission are mechanically driven by an electric motor, and the electric motor is generally controlled by power electronic circuits. Essentially, the power electronic circuits apply the electric power to the motor in such a way that the speed and acceleration of the vehicle can be controlled by the user (as in a gas-consuming car). And of course, electric cars are fitted with other components also found on gas-consuming cars such as brakes, heating, air conditioning, wipers, etc.
**Pros: electricity readily available from outlets, very energy efficient, mechanically simpler than gas-type car, good performance from electric motor
**Cons: refilling the batteries takes time, less range than a gas-powered vehicle

So, now that you have a one paragraph description that superficially answers your question, here is a lot more information that could keep you busy for a while. I am an electrical engineering student who enjoys reading articles on the internet, in magazines and newspapers about electric cars, so this is what I recommend.

First, a general overview and brief history of the electric vehicles is given in the first link, courtesy of Wikipedia. Also, more general information about electric cars can be found at the HowStuffWorks website (second link) (highly recommended). Type in "electric car" into the search box and you can then browse through several interesting articles on how electric cars work, how hybrids work, how electric motors work, etc. Next, EV World is a pretty well put together information portal for electric cars (third link).

There are some electric cars that are available right now from smaller American companies or companies abroad. A few that I find interesting are listed in the next few links. Tesla Motors has a VERY cool website with a lot of easy-to-digest information (highly recommended). There are also concept cars coming out from larger companies such as the Chevy Volt. Finally, just type in electric car into a search engine (or Yahoo Answers) and you can find even more information.

Answer 2

Electric cars are not currently widely available on the market. The big perceived advantage of this is that, rather than generating your power on board (like in a gasoline engine) you would be able to get it the same way you power your laptop or cell phone: you plug it into the wall and charge up a battery. This way you could theoretically have a very environmentally friendly car (you could run it off solar or wind power, for example).

The limitations are that:
-Current batteries don't have a very long range: you can't drive more than about 250 miles, and then you need to charge the car for a long time (like overnight) before you can drive it again. While this would be okay for most people's day-to-day driving (typically less than 40 miles at a stretch) it's kind of a turn-off, since gas cars can be refueled very quickly. There's a lot of work going on to improve batteries.
- Until recently, electric cars didn't have much power. But Google "Tesla Roadster" ... that sucker has some serious get-up-and-go. If you happen to have $130,000 to drop on a two-seater.
- Car manufacturers are conservative about adopting new technology. Look at how much they fought the passenger side airbag.

Personally I think we'll start seeing mass produced fully electric vehicles within the next 5-10 years in the US. They've got a lot of potential.

Answer 3

There are currently several models of HYBRID cars on the market which use gasoline engines on the same drive shaft as electric motors. Examples: Honda Insight/Accord/Civic, Toyota Prius.

There are anticipated to be new cars in a few years that run off of electric power supplied by FUEL CELLS.

You can find more info on Wikipedia, the free, online encyclopedia. For fuel cells try:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cells

Hope this helps!