The Consumer Guide to Electric Cars
by Dave Hall
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The Consumer Guide to Electric Cars
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The th!nk city is just one of the electric cars on its way to the U.S.
Why drive an electric car? There are a lot of reasons to find another way to power our automobiles: end dependence on foreign oil, decrease emissions, and reduce smog. Perhaps the overarching reason that hits home with environmentalists, conservationists, politicians, and the average consumer is one thing: High gas prices. Electric cars use no gasoline or diesel fuel, require little maintenance, have little direct impact on the environment, and the fuel--electricity--costs the equivalent of 60 cents per gallon.
Modern car buyers like the fact that they can fill their gas tank in five minutes and be on their way. Rapid-charging technology for electric vehicles is in the works, and if it becomes commercially viable, we're one step closer to public acceptance of an electric-car society. The next hurdle is the price of the batteries. Any new technology always has a huge initial price tag (look at cell phones, computers, digital cameras,and even automobiles, which were all very expensive in their infancy but are now cheap and a heck-of-a-lot better than their predecessors). Some companies are proposing to lease the batteries to quell consumers' fears of high replacement and repair costs and--until rapid-charging becomes viable--battery-swapping locations, where you can exchange your dead battery for a charged one. Charging stations may spring up as part of an electric car "gas station" infrastructure.
There are some that like to dismiss the electric car by noting that some of the electricity used to power it comes from coal-burning plants, so there's little difference in the amount of CO2 released into the air when compared to a conventional car. While it might seem like choosing between methods of killing the planet, electric cars are vastly more efficient for the amount of energy they consume. In a conventional car's engine, most of the energy contained in gasoline is wasted in byproduct heat from the combustion cycle, whereas power losses in an electric car are very low. Electric cars use the vast majority of their stored energy to drive the wheels. Energy from renewable sources, however, negates the need to pollute the atmosphere at all. The two newest viable renewable sources include the sun (solar panels) and wind (propeller turbines).
There aren't many electric cars on the market right now, but wait a year or so. Many electric carmakers are vying for a release date between 2009 and 2010. At Consumer Guide, we refer to electric cars that present a viable option for replacing conventional cars as traffic-ready electric vehicles. These electrics promise all the comfort and features of regular cars, and, combined with standard features, good looks, and safety, they really could replace your current car.
Better Place
Shai Agassi, a businessman and entrepreneur, has a different idea about the future of electric cars. His company, Better Place, is working to set up an infrastructure that will support electric cars, and, according to him, "break the world of the addiction to oil."
Renault and Nissan will produce the cars, but it wasn't enough to have the backing of a major car company to make this work. To overcome the limits of current battery technology, Agassi says a support infrastructure must be in place. The program will work like this: You can plug in the car or exchange the spent battery for a freshly charged one at a special battery exchange facility if you don't have time to charge or forgot to plug it in.
Businessman Shai Agassi and automakers Renault and Nissan are partnering to develop electric cars and the infrastructure needed to support them.
Why Renault and Nissan? Carlos Ghosn, CEO and President of Renault-Nissan, sees electric cars as the future of transportation, and offers this in opposition to gas/electric hybrid vehicles: Hybrids still rely on oil and simply perpetuate the problem. Electricity can come from many different sources; some of them environmentally friendly.
As for Better Place in the U.S., there are plans, but they are still far off. Better Place is launching a pilot program in Israel, a country dependent on imported oil. The pilot program makes economic sense because Israel is a compact country and electric cars driven there will likely never cross borders, allowing for a localized infrastructure coverage area. Better Place has also announced a partnership with the Ontario government to set up an electric-car infrastructure in the Canadian province.
The Future
Like Better Place, Mercedes-Benz has tested a fleet of electric-drive Smart ForTwo minicars in London and is now launching a program in Berlin with 100 Smart cars and 500 charging stations around the city.
Other major automakers, like Mitsubishi, Subaru, and Toyota, are examining markets in Europe and Asia for electric-vehicle launches. These automakers have made few plans for the U.S. market, but if demand for these products grows in the U.S. (i.e. gas prices skyrocket and stay there), we may see more electric cars on the road soon.
Smart is testing 100 electric ForTwos on the streets of Berlin, Germany.
Let's take a look at the traffic-ready electric vehicles you can buy right now or in the near future. Please note, the vehicles covered here aren't exotically priced and go faster than 25 mph.
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