Electric car

My father had an electric car when I was a child. I don't remember the brand, but it was based on an AMC body. The heating system was based on the recirculation of transmission fluid. In retrospect, this implies to me that the design didn't leverage many of the purported advantages of an electric motor--i.e.: an electric car shouldn't require a transmission. Anyway, I distinctly remember the time that some hose came loose and the thing bled a bunch of bright red transmission fluid all over the driveway.

I suppose if they were clever (which they werent), they might have gone with heated seats instead of an arcanely complex use of heat-exchangers and recirculated transmission fluid. Or maybe electric cars aren't meant for cold climates like Detroit.

An interesting alternative to conventional batteries is the fuel cell, which combusts hydrogen in air to power an electricity-producing mechanism. The best part is that it creates only water as exhaust. Fuel Cell technology is already developed enough to be incorporated into normal automobiles, but right now the necessary infrastructure, including manufacturing facilities and hydrogen refueling stations, does not exist to make them of much use.

Until electric cars become a viable alternative to fossil fuel powered vehicles, the trend will be to create more and more efficient gas-powered cars. Some gas/electric hybrids are on the road today, but they look kind of weird.

That is, this will be the trend that people who care about the environment will follow, whereas everyone else will continue to buy SUV's which they need for driving up wooded hills, over piles of big rocks, and through wide expanses of open desert.

Hybrid cars are definitely much more efficient than either method, in any case, as evidenced by the current hybrid cars (which are basically normal petrolmobiles with a generator-motor pair instead of a normal engine) getting ungodly fuel efficiency.

Of course, pure-electric cars are probably overall more efficient than pure-gasoline ones, but they're certainly not pollution-free - last I checked, most places in the country still rely on fossil fuel electricity generation (solar and wind are too expensive, and nuclear is too untrusted).

Fuel cells are promising, but there are problems with hydrogen fuel cells. There is no infrastructure for distributing hydrogen, whereas there is already an established infrastructure for distributing electricity and gasoline. Hydrogen is difficult to create and store, and it requires electricity to create - the same electricity that could have been used to charge an electric car. Fuel cells can be equipped with reformers, so they can be fueled with gasoline or natural gas - stripping the hydrogen from these fuels to use in the fuel cell - however, this brings us back to fossil fuel dependency and emissions problems.

Current hybrid-electric cars (Honda Insight, Toyota Prius) are really glorified gasoline cars that are more efficient. They receive all their input power from gasoline, so there is really no electric power component to them. What might be ideal is what is called a pluggable hybrid - a hybrid-electric car that has large enough batteries to travel 20-40 miles on pure electric power, and can plug into the wall to charge the batteries. Most people don't drive more than 20-40 miles a day, so they would be able to use pure electric power 97% of the time, and the 3% of the time they need to go on long trips, they would use the gasoline engine.

Range: EVs don't have the range of gasoline cars, or hybrids, or fuel cell vehicles. However, most people do not drive more than 20-40 miles a day, and very rarely go on long-distance trips. Personally, I plug in my car in the evening, and in the morning it is fully charged. I drive around during the day, then plug in at night. I never have to go to the gas station.

Emissions: studies have shown that, even taking upstream emissions into account (i.e. power generation emissions), EVs reduce emissions by 97% over normal gasoline cars. And this doesn't even take into account the upstream emissions of gasoline (i.e. oil and gasoline spills, shipping the oil around the world, electric energy used in refining, etc.)

Also note that electric vehicles get cleaner as our electric power supply gets cleaner, unlike gasoline cars which get dirtier as their emissions systems age. Also, many people remove their emissions systems to improve performance on their gasoline car - electric vehicles are inherently clean and have no need for emissions systems. And the best part is, you can install solar panels on your roof and use them to charge your car with 100% renewable energy. Also, if you live in an area where you can choose your electricity provider, you can sign up for 100% renewable energy and achieve the same goal.

EVs are fun to drive and tend to have large amounts of torque in the low RPM range compared to a gasoline engine. My EV1 can blow anyone away off the line. There is no transmission, so acceleration is glass smooth.

There is also no radiator, fuel pump, motor oil, or catalytic converter - it is a very simple car! Note that there is much pollution that stems from these additional devices - 180 million gallons of motor oil are sent to our landfills and are poured down drains every year - the equivalent of 16 Exxon Valdez spills.

Regarding simplicity of the electric vehicle: the motors in modern cars have hundreds of moving parts, whereas the motor of an EV has one moving part. Combine this with the simplicity of the car, and you would have much less need to go to the service station.

To summarize - electric vehicles are fun to drive, easy to maintain, and reduce pollution.