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Friday, January 7, 2011

Electric Cars

Thursday, 2 December 2010 at 20:05
Electric cars are expected to have a major impact in the auto industry given advantages in city pollution, less dependence on oil, and expected rise in gasoline prices. World governments are pledging billions to fund development of electric vehicles and their components. The U.S. has pledged US$2.4 billion in federal grants for electric cars and batteries. China has announced it will provide US$15 billion to initiate an electric car industry. Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn has predicted that one in 10 cars globally will run on battery power alone by 2020.

Electric cars are a variety of electric vehicle (EV); the term electric vehicle refers to any vehicle that uses electric motors for propulsion, while electric car generally refers to road-going automobiles powered by electricity. While an electric car's power source is not explicitly an on-board battery, electric cars with motors powered by other energy sources are generally referred to by a different name: an electric car powered by sunlight is a solar car, and an electric car powered by a gasoline generator is a form of hybrid car. Thus, an electric car that derives its power from an on-board battery pack is a form of battery electric vehicle (BEV). Most often, electric car is used to refer to pure battery electric vehicles.

Electric cars enjoyed popularity between the mid-19th century and early 20th century, when electricity was among the preferred methods for automobile propulsion, providing a level of comfort and ease of operation that could not be achieved by the gasoline cars of the time. Advances in internal combustion technology led to a decline in the use of electric propulsion, effectively removing it from important markets such as the United States by the 1930s. However, in recent years interest rose in electric cars, which are perceived to be more environmentally friendly and cheaper to maintain and run, despite high initial costs.

California electric car maker Tesla Motors began development in 2004 on the Tesla Roadster, which was first delivered to customers in 2008.
The Nissan LEAF , due to be launched in 2010, is expected to be the first all electric, Surprisingly media forgot about German Automakers plans like Audi , BMW. Here is German Electric Car in 1904.



All the geniuses here at General Motors kept saying lithium-ion technology is 10 years away, and Toyota agreed with us -- and boom, along comes Tesla. So I said, 'How come some tiny little California startup, run by guys who know nothing about the car business, can do this, and we can't?'

Electric cars are generally more expensive than gasoline cars. The primary reason is the high cost of car batteries.

Most of the running cost of an electric vehicle can be attributed to the maintenance and replacement of the battery pack because an electric vehicle has only around 5 moving parts in its engine, compared to a gasoline car that has hundreds of parts in its internal combustion engine. Electric cars have expensive batteries that must be replaced but otherwise incur very low maintenance costs.. Particularly in the case of current Lithium based designs.

While heating can be simply provided with an electric resistance heater, higher efficiency and integral cooling can be obtained with a reversible heat pump

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