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October, 2004
Why?
Emissions - none, zero, zip. Even with electricity being generated at coal power plants,
the emissions are still less than 3% of what a current gas engine would produce today [2][3]. On the west coast of Canada, a large majority of our electricity comes from zero emission hydro electricity [6].
Noise - quiet. Very quiet as there is no engine noise.
Efficient - 85% of the electricity that goes into an electric vehicle is converted to motion. A gas engine? at best 15-20%. [4]
Running Cost - running an electric vehicle is about 15% of the a gasoline car. [5] Gasoline won't be getting any cheaper.
Independence - electricity cannot only be produced locally, it can be produced at home.
Why not?
Range - yep, range is not that great, at best it can be about 300km with advanced batteries (LiIon), typical is 80-100km. Good for around town, but not good for extended trips.
Cost - oh yes. Building a high quality battery electric vehicle costs from $30,000-$50,000. An inexpensive conversion can be done for $9,000
Refuel Time - it takes 2-6 hours to recharge a battery pack. This is fine for overnight charging, but this is not acceptable for charging while on a trip.
All of these drawbacks to electric vehicles are solely because there are so few people developing this technology.
As electric vehicles become more and more common, there will be many more improvements in these weak areas.
What about fuel cells?
Efficiency - the efficiency of a battery electric vehicle from the point of generation is about 77% efficient.
the efficiency of a fuel cell electric vehicle from the point of generation is about 30% efficient.[1]
Infrastructure - the proposed infrastructure for hydrogen is to set up an infrastructure of hydrogen pipelines and hydrogen gas stations.
With battery electric vehicles, a major portion of the infrastructure is largely already in place - the existing electricity network. Electricity charging stations will have to set up.
References
[1] A Cost Comparison of Fuel Cell and Battery Electric Vehicles
[2] Debunking the Myths of EVs and Smokestacks
[3] The Truth about Auto Emissions
[4] Power Systems and Efficiency
[5] Efficiency of gasoline car: 8litre/100km @ $1.00/litre. Efficiency of electric vehicle 200W-hr/km @ 0.06/kWh.
[6] BC Hydro
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