Electric cars are now ready to take over the world. But did you know that they are nothing new?
Electric cars are nothing new – they date back to 1832. Well before the first gasoline-powered car. The first car to go faster than a hundred kilometres per hour was in 1899.
An electric one.
But then came the Model T. As gas stations popped up around the country, they could be quickly refuelled, allowing you to travel further and faster than charging electric ones – which in those days took a long time to set.
Oh, how times have changed.
Don’t get me wrong, we still use electric cars but less so on earth. In the vacuum of space, they used an Apollo lunar roving electric vehicle to drive around.
And astronauts didn’t have to worry about getting speeding tickets – that’s for sure.
The vehicles used non-rechargeable silver-zinc potassium hydroxide batteries ranging from just 92km.
This demonstrated the benefits of electric vehicles: they could run quietly with no emissions. But it also illustrated their limitations. Electric cars were expensive, short-range and impractical for everyday use.
So why are they the new future?
“We’ve seen a real shift in customer perception of electric vehicles, and our demand is the best we’ve ever seen” – Elon Musk.
And many more are following suit.
Even Formula One has brought out a Formula-E car that can run a whole race on a single battery pack.
This is all because of our extensive research and developments within our battery technology.
Electric cars don’t have air intakes, pistons, cylinders or even an exhaust system. In short, they have no combustion-engine-style mechanical parts or gears; therefore, by definition, there’s no by-product of their operation that would generate a revving noise.
So we could be waving goodbye to the natural roaring vroom-vroom sound we love to hear.
However, the BBC thinks there is much work before electric vehicles drive their petrol and diesel rivals off the road.
Most importantly, everyone needs to be able to charge their cars quickly and cheaply whether or not they have a driveway at their home. Currently it can cost more to insure an electric vehicle than a regular car but that could change.
When it comes to climate change, the benefits are like no other. For example:
- Charge your car at home
- Use solar panels to give your car an extra kick
- No CO2 emissions
- Plus, as cars become computers on wheels, let’s not forget how the car industry is moving towards self-driving.
The future of cars is pretty clear to me.
It will take a lot of work and investment, but it could happen soon.
Just as a vast network of petrol stations rapidly sprang up to fuel cars a century ago, so to will electric cars, and who knows, maybe they might even start hovering?
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