Now that the price of oil is unreasonably high, people are starting to really look into alternative fuels, myself included. Alternative methods of electricity generation such as wind, solar, tidal and wave energy are all well and good and can do a great job generating electricity for fixed resources. But what about a good mobile source of power? Something that would be able to replace gasoline or diesel fuel in cars and trucks? What kind of fuel would be good for that? Bio Diesel, ethanol, natural gas, propane or other organic fuels? All of these have to be burned to release their energy, plus they all have various toxic emissions of their own. Now, with all the concern over global warming and pollution issues they just don't stack up. Not to mention we don't have enough fertile land to keep up with growing demand for food, let alone adding a fuel source to the already strained farming industry. So what is the answer? Well I don't claim electricity is the end all be all, however it is a solution and a rather decent one at that.
Lets look at the basic operation of an electric car. It has an electric drive, a controller and batteries (these are the macro component groups). Electric motors are very simple devices consisting of a drive shaft, electro magnets and the housing (again over simplified, but it makes the point). Compare that to an IC (internal combustion) engine which has so many parts that it wouldn't make sense to list them all here. What am I getting at? Well, if you have heard of the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) principle, this falls right in line. What does that mean for the user? Frankly, less maintenance and less chance of issues. Now don't get me wrong a car is still a car and there are many other working parts that can break down, but in the end, simpler is better.
Now what kind of emissions does an electric car have? Locally, none. What the heck do you mean locally none? Well, when an electric car is using the stored energy from its batteries, there is nothing in terms of emissions generated. The motor is using the stored energy to make it turn. However that electricity has to be generated somehow and our current generation technologies have emissions, IE coal fired plants, nuclear plants and nat gas peaking plants. So in an ideal world we would use renewable energy such as wind and solar to charge our electric cars and there were be no emissions whatsoever.
What other benefits would we achieve from Electric Car Conversions? well, cars would be virtually silent when stopped, and the only sound when in motion would be tire noise, wind noise and miscellaneous others like brake and steering noises. Wouldn't that be nice? Sitting there in traffic (well the annoying part of sitting in traffic aside...) and not having to listen to other cars rumbling next to you? I think that would be a great benefit! Cutting down tremendously on noise pollution.
Now what are some of the main drawbacks to Electric Car Conversions? The one forefront in the minds of most people is limited range. It is terrible to think that you only have X number of miles you can travel in a day. Thats a strong argument, how do you respond to that? Well for most people the range of an electric car will be more than sufficient to cover all your daily driving. How many miles do you drive during a normal given day? According to the BTS (Bureau of Transportation Statistics) that number for the average American is going to be less than 40. If you have an electric car that is capable of 120 to 140 miles per charge, that would be more than sufficient. It would also allow you to do a whole lot more than that. The issues come when you start talking about long trips. At the moment they are a problem. At least with current chemical based batteries that take time to recharge. Hydrogen fuel cells are also batteries, however they are batteries that are refillable just like your gas tank is now. I won't delve into fuel cells in this article, but know that they are available now and are having a lot of research done to improve their technology and safety. Other drawbacks... You will hear people say, electric cars are great if you don't want heat or AC. That I believe, is a common misconception. It was true back in the day, but if I am not mistaken, you can run heaters and AC units off electricity. It will however decrease your miles per charge, but if you aren't driving to the full range of the car, this probably won't be a problem.
All of that being said, in terms of our automotive future I believe electric is the only way to go. What can you do right now? Well at the moment Electric Car Conversions are a good way to go. Since the automotive industry will be a while in bringing these cars to market, there are a whole wide range of cars out there that can be converted. In the near future I hope to convert my 03 Mitsubishi Lancer into an EV as my first project in this field. In doing so, I hope to generate some buzz in my local area for EV's.
