A Brief History of Electric Cars
It's been almost two centuries since a Hungarian inventor named Anyos Jedlik first built a model for an electric car back in 1828. Improvements in battery technology in the mid-1800s put the old-school electric vehicles (or EVs for short) in position to take over Europe. But a long series of setbacks – from the popularity of railroads to lack of electrical infrastructure and the eventual domination of Ford, internal combustion engines and petroleum – left the technology only half-charged for generations.
Recent decades of unstable oil prices and tensions with oil-producing nations, coupled with concerns over global warming and the specter of peak oil, have placed electric cars back in the spotlight.
After lifetimes of delays and hang-ups and nearly 200 years of history, the electric car's day may have finally arrived.
Today's electric cars are much more than the golf carts of the last century. Sure, there's a variety of small or Neighborhood Electric Vehicles from makers like Korea’s CT&T (view: gallery of CT&T electric vehicles) looking to make a dent in the market.
But independent makers like Tesla is proving that going electric doesn't necessarily mean sacrificing performance. The sporty, electric-only Tesla Roadster (read: 2010 Tesla Roadster Review) is already pushing the envelope of battery-powered speed, acceleration and range.
One important note: for our purposes here, we define an electric car as any vehicle that relies exclusively on electrical power for propulsion. We're not including hybrids like the Toyota Prius or even the much-hyped plug-in hybrids like the Fisker Karma (read: Fisker Karma Preview) and the Chevy Volt (read: Chevy Volt Preview). We’re focused on pure plug-in electric cars only.
How Electric Cars Work
This quick explanation of how an electric car works is by no means exhaustive (no pun intended). You can easily spend hours scouring all the available information online about the details of electric car technology. For our purposes, we’ll keep it fairly simple and direct.
A plug-in electric car is powered by an electric motor versus a gasoline engine. That means an electric car doesn’t have a gas tank or a tail pipe. So you’ll never see a miles-per-gallon rating for a pure electric vehicle. More important for the environment, an electric car produces zero emissions.
An electric car is powered in three simple steps: place your foot on the accelerator and rechargeable batteries deliver power to a controller that sends the appropriate power to the motor. The controller regulates the vehicle’s speed based on how much pressure is placed on the accelerator pedal – between zero volts and the full voltage of the electric motor and battery packs.
Electric cars deliver exceptionally fast acceleration – the Tesla Roadster goes from zero to 60 miles per hour in less than 4 seconds.
To fully recharge an electric vehicle’s batteries, you simply plug them into a 120-, 220-, 240- or 480-volt charger. Charging through a 120-volt outlet can take more than eight hours. Ultimately, charging times will depend on the specific vehicle, battery type, and different manufacturer configurations.
Many vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf (read: Nissan Leaf Preview), will offer a “quick charge” capability that can restore up to 80 percent of the battery’s charge in less than 30 minutes. However, it’s expected the quick charge will likely require visiting a quick-charge station that offers a charge up to 480 volts at 100 amps. Most homes and garages won’t be able to offer quick-charge capability.
Big Automakers Enter the Electric Car Game
For many observers, mass-market acceptance is the true test of a technology's worthiness and value. Electric car fans are thrilled as many major manufacturers are developing and releasing their own updates of Jedlik's 200-year old Hungarian concept car, from Nissan's Leaf to planned offerings from Mitsubishi, Subaru, BMW and others.
A century after Henry Ford's own revolution banished electric vehicles to the fringes of the automotive world, carmakers are swapping out engine blocks for battery packs and hoping that the coming years will finally be the decade of the electric revolution.
The Advantages and Disadvantages of Electric Cars
Like all technologies, there are pros and cons of electric cars. We've detailed "The Advantages of Electric Cars" as well as "The Disadvantages of Electric Cars" to help you determine if it makes sense for you to park an electric car in your garage.