help with report on electric cars?

Question

i have to write a paper and give a 5 minute speech on electric cars. i have been getting a lot of information that just doesnt make any sense to me. can some one please clear things up? all i want to know is how they work. please explain this to me.

Answer 1

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Yes, you are getting conflicting information because, unfortunately, some people treat electric cars as a political issue rather than an engineering one.
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An electric car is much simpler than a gasoline one (there are fewer systems to worry about.) Some EVs don't even use transmissions, and connect motors directly to the wheels. The motor connects to an electronic controller, which controls the flow of electricity from the batteries.
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I own an electric car. My car was built way back in 1981. It still has all the original electric motor and electronic controller parts, which have never needed service in 25 years. Electric cars are extremely reliable because the electric motor only has one moving part - the rotor, which is turned by an electromagnetic field. There is no other source of friction, and nothing to wear out. Gasoline engines, by contrast, have many, many moving parts, nearly all of which are in friction contact with other parts.
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Electric cars are extremely cheap to drive. A typical EV might get 5 miles to the kilowatt hour (KWH.) Kilowatt-hours are sold by your local power utility for a few cents each. Here in Detroit (like in many cities), a special overnight rate of only 3 cents per KWH is available. This means my driving cost per mile is less than one cent. Compare this to gasoline, which costs at least 10 cents per mile.
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The reason it is so much cheaper to drive on electricity has to do with efficiency. Gasoline engines are only 25% efficient at best, and in practice are less efficient than that because of wasted energy during acceleration, idling, and braking. Electric motors are almost 95% efficient, they don't idle, and they recover energy during braking (called regenerative braking.)
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It's also much more efficient to burn fuel in powerplants than to burn it in your gas car, as efficiencies up to 85% can be achieved. And distributing energy to your electric car by wire (the electric grid is 95% efficient) is much, much more efficient than delivering gasoline by truck to thousands of service stations.
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The vastly improved efficiency is also the reason we don't have to worry about pollution from power plants caused by EVs. Greatly improved efficiency means more miles traveled on less fuel, which means much less pollution per mile, no matter what the plants burn (plus the electric power grid gets cleaner all the time. Gasoline will never get cleaner.)
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You might be interested in what the latest electric car looks like. Here's a link:
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http://phoenixmotorcars.com/models/fleet.html
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The Phoenix electric pickup truck - using new, advanced Altairnano batteries - can:

-Travel up to 250 miles per charge
-Carry 5 passengers plus cargo at 95mph.
-Charges batteries in as little as TEN MINUTES.
-Has batteries that last 250,000 miles (never need replacement.)
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Answer 2

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Answer 3

Simply put electric cars have batteries that are charged (usually by a simple household outlet.) Their drivetrain is powered by electric motors that draw energy from the batteries.

Pros: No pollution (from the vehicle)

Cons: Short range (can't go very far on a charge),
the batteries are heavy, take up space, and are expensive to replace. Additionally the electricity that charges the batteries is primarly generated by coal burning powerplants in the US which are huge polluters. So instead of polluting directly from the tailpipe you're just doing so by charging the vehicle.

Answer 4

Electric motor connects to tires. Motor on = tires turning. Battery kept charged with an alternator. Alternator runs off a small gasoline powered engine.

Any other questions?