Will electric cars take the lead?

Electric vehicles are not a new invention, they are existing since the early 1800s and are as old as Internal combustion engines (petrol/gasoline and diesel-powered.) Since with the advancements in electric motors, numerous experiments have been done by many enthusiasts around the world; some experimented on a small scale car, some with non-rechargeable batteries, some used heavy galvanic cells and lead-acid batteries to power the electric motor. 

The advancements in gasoline-powered engines and the launch of Ford Model-T sold at half a price of an electric car and the cheap fuel prices are said to be killed electric vehicles. At present, there are more than 1.2 billion vehicles are on roads and around 98 per cent of them are run by fossil fuels which emit noxious gasses that destroy the environment by leaving carbon footprints.  The electric cars of today are lighter, quiet and fast, no exhaust and have a bunch of advantages over conventional cars. But still, electric cars account for about 1 million cars worldwide. Many popular automakers launching electric vehicles but they are not making enough profits compared to conventional cars. In fact, electric cars never made a commercial success in the past 180 years. So, are electric cars a failed experiment or they will drive the future??

Fossil fuels, a precious resource for mankind.

We don't just use fossil fuels as energy carriers, we use them in more than 6000 applications from engineering to medical fields

We are using fossil fuels for 3000-5000 years. The world oil production is depleting each year and we are increasing its usage. Considering the environmental issues and depletion of fossil fuels, now there is a need to look for alternatives to conventional fuels to power our vehicles and meet other energy requirements. 

90% of our energy requirements are met by fossil fuels
60% of petroleum is used to fuel our vehicles

The global oil production can be expected to decline steadily about 2-3 per cent a year

 Click HERE to read my article on Fossil fuels

Scientists around the world have already started research to find the green, better and efficient source to replace fossil fuels. New automotive technologies such as hybrids/range extended electric vehicles (REEVs), fuel cell vehicles (FCV) or hydrogen FCV (HFCV), compressed air engines and some blends in conventional fuels are developing to reduce the emissions and dependence on fossil fuels. There are actually plenty of alternatives to choose from but the question is which will take the lead?

Almost anything that can burn can be used as a fuel

BMW i8 Plug-in Hybrid (REEV) at BMW Museum, Munich, Germany

Biofuels are cleaner and can can replace conventional fuels with/without modification to current IC engines. Biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel are extracted from plant materials, ethanol is an alternative to petrol/gasoline and is produced from corn, barley, wheat and sugar cane. Many countries are already using ethanol blends for petrol/gasoline as E10 (10% ethanol and 90% petrol/gasoline) and E85

The quantity of grain needed to fill the tank (100 litres) of an SUV with ethanol is enough to feed one person for a year!

Biofuels are cleaner but they are expensive and they need a lot of water and space to grow. Deforestation can happen and would have devastating effects on rainforests and there will be a question to farmers to grow crops to feed humans or vehicles? 

Food insecurities is a problem even today

For every 15 seconds,  a child dies of hunger

People can starve to death if food insecurities rise and this is the problem even today and it would be even worse in underdeveloped countries if crops used to fuel rather than food. 

Methane, natural gas, and LPG are other sources to run IC engines but these require huge gas tanks which may be replaced in a liquid fuel tank in future but these fuels (mainly biofuels) are expensive and they cannot meet the demand in future. 

Biofuels are more expensive than petrochemicals 

Biofuels don't require much infrastructure to produce and they can be sold at regular gas stations and can be used directly (or with little modification) in conventional cars but the drawbacks are disturbing and scare us. 

It just costs only 1 Euro to travel 200 Kilometers on AIRPOD compressed air engine car developing by Tata Motors and MDI. 

(Image source: http://natler.over-blog.com)

Compressed air engines require electricity to compress the air and store in a tank. It doesn't need a battery to power the car!

AirPod, a compressed air car by an Indian company Tata Motors and Motor Development International (MDI) of France are jointly developing a compressed air system to power a car for urban usage. This technology was used to power trams in the late 19th century in France. This car runs on compressed air stored in a tank and can cruise at 80 KMPH. But to compress air, we need electricity and that should be from a clean source to make this innovation as a zero-emission car. It will be a great urban runabout.


A fuel of the future- The mighty Hydrogen, a powerful source that exists with water

Hydrogen can be used in IC engines (H2ICE) as well as in Electric vehicles (FCV)

Hydrogen is a promising source of energy carrier as the main source (Water) is abundantly available and can be a clean alternative if gas extracted from a renewable source. Hydrogen is not available directly on the earth, it needs steam to separate hydrogen from water. This process is called electrolysis and it is expensive. 

Hydrogen is used as rocket fuel,  It is more efficient than any other gas conventional fuels

Hydrogen has equal advantages and disadvantages; it requires high-pressure tanks to store and not a safe source of energy. A lot of research is carrying out to discover cheap and sustainable ways to use hydrogen as a clean alternative. In 2008, a company called Genepax of Japan unveiled a water-powered car and received a patent in Japan. A year later, the company was closed due to lack of funds. 

Turn your car into a hydrogen-powered. Genepax explains how to do it. 

Click here to redirect to Genepax's webpage

It's time for Hybrids

A hybrid system includes an Internal combustion engine, a battery pack and an electric motor. At low speeds, a hybrid vehicle will run on an electric motor, for higher speeds IC engine powers the vehicle and charges battery pack. This system can significantly increase the overall efficiency and reduce the emissions as it gets power from two different sources. 

Volvo's first plug-in electric hybrid bus, 7900 model in Luxembourg operating in the city.

Luxembourg was one of the first European countries to implement electric hybrid buses for public transport starting in 2009.

Volvo's electric hybrids are 60% more energy efficient and will cut CO2 emissions by 75-90% 

Hybrids are expensive, but mild hybrids are not!

Mild hybrids will run on normal IC engines and they are equipped with an oversized starter motor that can be used as a generator called Integrated starter motor (ISG) and an oversized battery that powers and recharges the motor. 

Suzuki Motor Corporation has developed an affordable mild hybrid system, SHVS (Smart Hybrid Vehicle by Suzuki) which uses the regenerative braking system. The car detects the undergone deceleration and the system recovers the braking energy and feeds back to the electrical system. ISG will give extra power to the engine at high speeds. Thus, it reduces the load on the engine and saves liquid fuel. 

All-Electric Vehicles

As I have mentioned in the beginning, EVs are considered as a failed experiment as they are underpowered, boring design, low battery range, no noise and very expensive, In 1996, General Motors (GM) launched the EV1 model electric car and later they destroyed all cars even though the response was positive. It's the biggest blunder in the history of the automotive industry!

General Motors EV1 electric car (Source: http://www.popsci.com/)

Click here to watch the video of Customer reviews on GM's EV1

I must say, EVs are not a failure, they just not built properly. General Motors launched the EV1 electric car and few cars were leased to the public and it won many hearts. Soon GM banned the production and took back those leased cars from people and destroyed them. People protested to bring back the E1, though GM did not react as they considered EVs as a threat to conventional cars.  

Watch this 6 min clip from the documentary, Who killed the electric car. 

Leaving the past, even today, there are only around 1 million electric vehicles are on roads whereas the count for petrol and diesel vehicles are over 1 billion. 

Mahindra Electric's e2o plus plug-in electric vehicle 

Click HERE to visit Mahindra Electric's webpage

An Indian company Mahindra & Mahindra acquired Reva Electric car company and launched two new fresh models of e2o and e2o Plus all-electric, Nissan launched Leaf in 2010 and GM again launched Chevy Bolt and Volt and other major brands are slowly introducing EVs to sustain in the market. 

Tesla Motors, the king of EVs is changing the fate of electric vehicles

Tesla cars are temptingly beautiful, technology is awe-inspiring, especially the autopilot technology, it's brilliant. I had been to a Tesla store in Mannheim, Germany to take the pics of Model S and Model X for this article, there was a huge crowd around all the cars. I waited for almost an hour to take snaps. Thanks to Elon Musk for investing his energy in electric cars. I just say EVs couldn't get such a popularity without him.  

Teslas' are passionately built with a purpose

Many thanks, Mr. Mahesh Prajapati for such a wonderful artwork of 

 2016 Tesla Model S

Tesla cars are fully electric, they look and perform far better than conventional sports cars. Tesla Model S accelerates 0-100 kph in just 2.9 seconds and available with a range over 500 Km per single charge. 

Fun fact: Tesla cars are so strong that Model S broke the test rig while testing the roof of the car. The Model S got 5.4 stars out of 5 by NHTSA (The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)  

Check ev-volumes.com  for all about  EV stats and advancements around the world.

But how far the all-electric cars are greener?

No tailpipe emission does not mean they are greener and mining lithium is not a green activity!

Plug-in electric vehicles require an external source to recharge its batteries. if the electric source is derived from coal or other fossil fuel sources, then there is very less impact we can make using electric vehicles. The batteries are made of rare earth metals and that need intense mining. 

A car with E85 blend produces 39.85 pounds of CO2/75 miles. That's equivalent distance as one full charge of a Nissan Leaf, which generates 34.96 pounds of CO2 based on the current U.S mix of power generation

Tesla vehicles comes with 8 years/unlimited miles battery warranty, which is pretty impressive. Elon Musk also partnered with SolarCity Corporation to provide clean energy and to reduce the dependency on the fossil-fuelled electric sources. 

Electric cars are becoming more efficient to compete with conventional cars in all aspects as they exist from the age of IC engines. Now the batteries last longer, their performance is going to increase and the price would decrease. With the solar roof by SolarCity, one can have their own power grid on their roofs and can get free and zero-emission energy to power their home and electric cars. 

The other alternatives for clean energy sources like bio-fuels, hydrogen fuel cells and natural gas requires new R&D setups to improve the efficiency of engines and a new infrastructure may be needed, technicians/mechanics have to learn the new skills to repair those cars and this will create problems in underdeveloped countries, improper repairs leads to disasters as hydrogen fuel is such a dangerous gas, there will be a huge demand for biofuel crops if biofuel vehicles take a lead. We are going to suffer, the food we eat and water we drink also going to affect. 

Clean energy is one of the trending scopes in the future. Solar, wind and other innovations in clean energy technologies will drive us to a whole new world which is cleaner, greener and better. 

Our future is going to be better and World Earth day wishes. 

(Image source: http://firsteditionfirstaid.ca/)

Thanks for reading and I hope you liked this article. 

Comments are appreciated.

"Protecting our natural resources is one of the biggest entrepreneurial opportunities of our lifetimes"
-Sir Richard Branson