Electric Cars

An electric car is an automobile that is propelled by one or more electric motors, using electrical energy stored in batteries or another energy storage device. Electric motors give electric cars instant torque, creating strong and smooth acceleration.

The first electric cars appeared in the 1880s. Electric cars were popular in the late 19th century and early 20th century, until advances in internal combustion engines and mass production of cheaper gasoline vehicles led to a decline in the use of electric drive vehicles. The energy crises of the 1970s and 1980s brought a short-lived interest in electric cars; although, those cars did not reach the mass marketing stage, as is the case in the 21st century. Since 2008, a renaissance in electric vehicle manufacturing has occurred due to advances in batteries and power management, concerns about increasing oil prices, and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Several national and local governments have established tax credits, subsidies, and other incentives to promote the introduction and adoption in the mass market of new electric vehicles depending on battery size and their all-electric range.

Benefits of electric cars over conventional internal combustion engine automobiles include a significant reduction of local air pollution, as they do not emit tailpipe pollutants,in many cases, a large reduction in total greenhouse gas and other emissions (dependent on the fuel used for electricity generation), and less dependence on foreign oil, which in several countries is cause for concern about vulnerability to oil price volatility and supply disruption. But widespread adoption of electric cars faces several hurdles and limitations, including their higher cost, lack of recharging infrastructure (other than home charging) and range anxiety (the driver's fear that the electric energy stored in the batteries will run out before the driver reaches their destination, due to the limited range of most existing electric cars).

As of January 2014, the number of mass production highway-capable all-electric passenger cars and utility vans available in the market is limited to about 25 models, mainly in the United States, Japan, Western European countries and China. Pure electric car sales in 2012 were led by Japan with a 28% market share of global sales, followed by the United States with a 26% share, China with 16%, France with 11%, and Norway with 7%. The world's top selling highway-capable electric car ever is the Nissan Leaf, released in December 2010 and sold in 35 countries, with global sales of over 147,000 units by mid-November 2014.

Invention
First practical electric car, built by Thomas Parker in 1884
Rechargeable batteries that provided a viable means for storing electricity on board a vehicle did not come into being until 1859, with the invention of the lead-acid battery by French physicist Gaston Planté.

Thomas Parker, responsible for innovations such as electrifying the London Underground, overhead tramways in Liverpool and Birmingham, built the first practical production electric car in London in 1884, using his own specially designed high-capacity rechargeable batteries.

An alternative contender as the world's first electric car was the German Flocken Elektrowagen, built in 1888.

Golden age
Electric cars were reasonably popular in the late 19th century and early 20th century, when electricity was among the preferred methods for automobile propulsion, providing a level of comfort and ease of operation that could not be achieved by the gasoline cars of the time.

German electric car, 1904
Advances in internal combustion engines, especially the electric starter, soon lessened the relative advantages of the electric car. The greater range of gasoline cars, and their much quicker refueling times, encouraged a rapid expansion of petroleum infrastructure, which quickly proved decisive. The mass production of gasoline-powered vehicles, by companies such as Ford, reduced prices of gasoline-engined cars to less than half that of equivalent electric cars, and that inevitably led to a decline in the use of electric propulsion, effectively removing it from the automobile market by the early 1930s.

Electric battery-powered taxis became available at the end of the 19th century. In London, Walter C. Bersey designed a fleet of such cabs and introduced them to the streets of London in 1897. They were soon nicknamed "Hummingbirds" due to the idiosyncratic noise they made.

In 1911, the New York Times stated that the electric car has long been recognized as "ideal" because it was cleaner, quieter and much more economical than gasoline-powered cars.

Mid to late 20th century: stops and starts

Some European nations during World War II experimented with electric cars, but the technology stagnated. Several ventures were established to build electric cars, such as the Henney Kilowatt. In 1955, the U.S. Air Pollution Control Act helped address the growing emissions problems and this law was later amended to establish regulatory standards for automobiles.

Concerns with rapidly decreasing air quality caused by automobiles prompted the U.S. Congress to pass the Electric Vehicle Development Act of 1966 that provided for electric car research by universities and laboratories. Although a nickel-cadmium battery was used for an all-electric 1969 Rambler American station wagon, other "plug-in" vehicles were developed with Gulton that included the Amitron and the similar Electron.

The energy crises of the 1970s and 80s brought about renewed interest in the perceived independence that electric cars had from the fluctuations of the hydrocarbon energy market. In the early 1990s, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) began a push for more fuel-efficient, lower-emissions vehicles, with the ultimate goal being a move to zero-emissions vehicles such as electric vehicles.

1990s to present: Revival of interest

First Nissan Leaf delivered in the U.S. on the road south of San Francisco
The global economic recession in the late 2000s led to increased calls for automakers to abandon fuel-inefficient SUVs, which were seen as a symbol of the excess that caused the recession, in favor of small cars, hybrid cars, and electric cars. California electric automaker Tesla Motors began development in 2004 on the Tesla Roadster, which was first delivered to customers in 2008. As of March 2012, Tesla had sold more than 2,250 Roadsters in at least 31 countries.

BMW ActiveE field testing program for the development of the BMW i3
In the 2011 State of the Union address, U.S. President Barack Obama expressed an ambitious goal of putting 1 million plug-in electric vehicles on the roads in the U.S. by 2015.

The Smart electric drive, Wheego Whip LiFe, Mia electric, Volvo C30 Electric, and the Ford Focus Electric were launched for retail customers during 2011. The BYD e6, released initially for fleet customers in 2010, began retail sales in Shenzhen, China in October, 2011.

In February 2011, the Mitsubishi i MiEV became the first electric car to sell more than 10,000 units, including the models badged in Europe as the Citroën C-Zero and Peugeot iOn. Several months later, the Nissan Leaf overtook the i MiEV as the best selling all-electric car ever.

Models released to the market between 2012 and 2014 include the BMW ActiveE, Coda, Renault Fluence Z.E., Tesla Model S, Honda Fit EV, Toyota RAV4 EV, Renault Zoe, Roewe E50, Mahindra e2o, Chevrolet Spark EV, Fiat 500e, Volkswagen e-Up!, BMW i3, BMW Brilliance Zinoro 1E, Kia Soul EV, Volkswagen e-Golf, Mercedes-Benz B-Class Electric Drive, and Venucia e30. The Nissan Leaf passed the milestone of 50,000 units sold worldwide in February 2013.

Many countries are introducing CO
2 average emissions targets across all cars sold by a manufacturer, with financial penalties on manufacturers that fail to meet these targets. This has created an incentive for manufacturers, especially those selling many heavy or high-performance cars, to introduce electric cars as a means of reducing average fleet CO2 emissions.

This article is based on the Wikipedia article "Eletric Car" and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.