Electric Powered Vehicle

Believe it or not, electric cars have been around for almost a century. Back in the early 1900s, there were more electric cars on the road than there were gasoline-powered cars.  Even in the early 1920′s when vehicles became more popular, gasoline was still quite expensive and it was also very hard to start a gasoline engine as you had to turn a crank in the front of the car to get it to start

Gasoline vehicles were also noisy in comparison and put out lots of smoke. The early gasoline cars either had no mufflers, or the mufflers didn’t do much of a  job. So, back then, electric powered vehicles were far more popular and at one time there were around 50,000 of them on the roads of the United States.

But like the horse-drawn carriage, electric cars soon faded away as new ways to make gasoline more cheaply were discovered. Also, in order to overcome the difficulty of crank starting an engine, the electric starter was invented allowing an engine to be started with the turn of a key or the push of a button. Add into the equation a decent sized fuel tank giving the gasoline car a much greater driving range and the demise of the electric car had begun.

However, the wheel has now turned full circle and with the push for cleaner “greener” cars, electric cars are once again being seriously looked at as a way to help reduce greenhouse gases released into the air by gasoline. Electric cars don’t burn any fuels, there are no noxious emmissions at all.

They use electricity stored in batteries, sometimes there are up to 12 or 24 batteries, or more, required to power the car.  To charge an electric car’s batteries, the car is usually plugged into a regular household powerpoint overnight. Electricity, is then stored in the batteries of the car.

The batteries can be standard lead acid batteries, like the battery used in a regular gasoline car, or they can be Ni-Cad (nickel-cadmium) , nickel metal hydride, lithium ion and Li-ion polymer – only much larger. Better batteries that hold more energy and last longer are being developed all the time with a lot of new development being directed into fuel cell technology

Car manufacturers and scientists are continually coming up with new ways to fuel our vehicles in a cleaner, more environmentally friendly way.  The production of the electric car is an exciting one that is being embraced by more and more manufacturers and consumers every year.