Courtesy : en.wikipedia.org
Electric vehicle
An electric vehicle (EV)is a vehicle that uses one or more electric motors for propulsion. It can be powered by a collector system, with electricity from extravehicular sources, or it can be powered autonomously by a battery (sometimes charged by solar panels, or by converting fuel to electricity using fuel cells or a generator).EVs include, but are not limited to, road and rail vehicles, surface and underwater vessels, electric aircraft and electric spacecraft. For road vehicles, together with other emerging automotive technologies such as autonomous driving, connected vehicles and shared mobility, EVs form a future mobility vision called Connected, Autonomous, Shared and Electric (CASE) Mobility.
EVs first came into existence in the late 19th century, when electricity was among the preferred methods for motor vehicle propulsion, providing a level of comfort and ease of operation that could not be achieved by the gasoline cars of the time. Internal combustion engines were the dominant propulsion method for cars and trucks for about 100 years, but electric power remained commonplace in other vehicle types, such as trains and smaller vehicles of all types.
In the 21st century, EVs have seen a resurgence due to technological developments, and an increased focus on renewable energy and the potential reduction of transportation’s impact on climate change, air pollution, and other environmental issues. Project Drawdown describes electric vehicles as one of the 100 best contemporary solutions for addressing climate change.
Government incentives to increase adoption were first introduced in the late 2000s, including in the United States and the European Union, leading to a growing market for the vehicles in the 2010s. Increasing public interest and awareness and structural incentives, such as those being built into the green recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, is expected to greatly increase the electric vehicle market. During the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns have reduced the amount of greenhouse gases from gasoline or diesel vehicles. The International Energy Agency said in 2021 that governments should do more to meet climate goals, including policies for heavy electric vehicles. Electric vehicle sales may increase from 2% of global share in 2016 to 30% by 2030.As of July 2022 global EV market size was $280 billion and it is expected to grow to $1 trillion by 2026.Much of this growth is expected in markets like North America, Europe and China; a 2020 literature review suggested that growth in use of electric 4-wheeled vehicles appears economically unlikely in developing economies, but that electric 2-wheeler growth is likely.There are more 2 and 3 wheel EVs than any other type.
History
Main article: History of the electric vehicle
Electric motive power started in 1827, when Hungarian priest Ányos Jedlik built the first crude but viable electric motor, which used a stator, rotor, and commutator; and the next year he used it to power a small car. In 1835, professor Sibrandus Stratingh of the University of Groningen, in the Netherlands, built a small-scale electric car, and sometime between 1832 and 1839, Robert Anderson of Scotland invented the first crude electric carriage, powered by non-rechargeable primary cells. American blacksmith and inventor Thomas Davenport built a toy electric locomotive, powered by a primitive electric motor, in 1835. In 1838, a Scotsman named Robert Davidson built an electric locomotive that attained a speed of four miles per hour (6 km/h). In England a patent was granted in 1840 for the use of rails as conductors of electric current, and similar American patents were issued to Lilley and Colten in 1847.
The first mass-produced electric vehicles appeared in America in the early 1900s. In 1902, the Studebaker Automobile Company entered the automotive business with electric vehicles, though it also entered the gasoline vehicles market in 1904. However, with the advent of cheap assembly line cars by Ford Motor Company, the popularity of electric cars declined significantly.
Due to lack of electricity gridsand the limitations of storage batteries at that time, electric cars did not gain much popularity; however, electric trains gained immense popularity due to their economies and achievable speeds. By the 20th century, electric rail transport became commonplace due to advances in the development of electric locomotives. Over time their general-purpose commercial use reduced to specialist roles as platform trucks, forklift trucks, ambulances,tow tractors, and urban delivery vehicles, such as the iconic British milk float. For most of the 20th century, the UK was the world’s largest user of electric road vehicles.
Electrified trains were used for coal transport, as the motors did not use the valuable oxygen in the mines. Switzerland’s lack of natural fossil resources forced the rapid electrification of their rail network. One of the earliest rechargeable batteries – the nickel-iron battery – was favored by Edison for use in electric cars.
EVs were among the earliest automobiles, and before the preeminence of light, powerful internal combustion engines (ICEs), electric automobiles held many vehicle land speed and distance records in the early 1900s. They were produced by Baker Electric, Columbia Electric, Detroit Electric, and others, and at one point in history outsold gasoline-powered vehicles. In 1900, 28 percent of the cars on the road in the US were electric. EVs were so popular that even President Woodrow Wilson and his secret service agents toured Washington, D.C., in their Milburn Electrics, which covered 60–70 miles (100–110 km) per charge.
Most producers of passenger cars opted for gasoline cars in the first decade of the 20th century, but electric trucks were an established niche well into the 1920s. A number of developments contributed to a decline in the popularity of electric cars.Improved road infrastructure required a greater range than that offered by electric cars, and the discovery of large reserves of petroleum in Texas, Oklahoma, and California led to the wide availability of affordable gasoline/petrol, making internal combustion powered cars cheaper to operate over long distances.Electric vehicles were not seldom marketed as a women’s luxury car, which may have been a stigma among male consumers. Also, internal combustion powered cars became ever-easier to operate thanks to the invention of the electric starter by Charles Kettering in 1912,which eliminated the need of a hand crank for starting a gasoline engine, and the noise emitted by ICE cars became more bearable thanks to the use of the muffler, which Hiram Percy Maxim had invented in 1897. As roads were improved outside urban areas, electric vehicle range could not compete with the ICE. Finally, the initiation of mass production of gasoline-powered vehicles by Henry Ford in 1913 reduced significantly the cost of gasoline cars as compared to electric cars.
In the 1930s, National City Lines, which was a partnership of General Motors, Firestone, and Standard Oil of California purchased many electric tram networks across the country to dismantle them and replace them with GM buses. The partnership was convicted of conspiring to monopolize the sale of equipment and supplies to their subsidiary companies, but were acquitted of conspiring to monopolize the provision of transportation services.