Electric vehicle
An electric vehicle is a motorized vehicle whose propulsion is provided fully or mostly by electric power, via grid electricity or from onboard rechargeable batteries. EVs encompass a wide range of transportation modes, including road and rail vehicles, electric boats and submersibles, electric aircraft and electric spacecraft.
Early electric vehicles first came into existence in the late 19th century, when the Second Industrial Revolution brought forth electrification and mass utilization of DC and AC electric motors. Using electricity was among the preferred methods for early motor vehicle propulsion as it provided a level of quietness, comfort and ease of operation that could not be achieved by the gasoline engine cars of the time, but range anxiety due to the limited energy storage offered by contemporary battery technologies hindered any mass adoption of electric vehicles as private transportation throughout the 20th century. Internal combustion engines have been the dominant propulsion mechanisms for cars and trucks for about 100 years, but electricity-powered locomotion has remained commonplace in other vehicle types, such as overhead line-powered mass transit vehicles like electric multiple units, streetcars, monorails and trolley buses, as well as various small, low-speed, short-range battery-powered personal vehicles such as mobility scooters.
Since the late 20th century, technological advancement in lithium batteries, which offer superior energy density and current output than the prior lead-acid batteries, has revived public interests in electric vehicles as zero-emission vehicle options, although most plug-in electric vehicles made during the 1990s that are not neighborhood electric vehicles had very short market runs before being discontinued completely. Manufacturers mostly switched to hybrid electric vehicles that use internal combustions engines like conventional vehicles but also have electric motors as a supplement, which are powered by electricity produced internally by motor-generators and recovered from regenerative braking. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, which can be recharged from an electric grid and use electric motors as the primary propulsion rather than as a supplement to combustion engines, did not see any mass production until the late 2000s, and battery electric cars did not become practical options for the consumer market until the 2010s.
Technological progresses in electric vehicle batteries, electric traction motors and automotive electronics has made electric cars more feasible and, in some cases, more cost efficient than conventional ICE vehicles during the 21st century, with market penetration in some countries like China reaching nearly half of all new vehicles sold. As a means of reducing tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases and other air pollutants, and to reduce the dependency on fossil fuels, government incentives are also available in many areas to promote the adoption of electric cars. China is the world's leading EV producer, accounting for more than 70% of global production and 67% of global sales of electric vehicles in 2024.
History
Electric motive power started in 1827 when Hungarian priest Ányos Jedlik built the first rudimentary yet functional electric motor; the next year he used it to power a small model car. In 1835, Professor Sibrandus Stratingh of the University of Groningen, in the Netherlands, built a miniature electric vehicle 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. 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 a lack of electricity grids and 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 the general-purpose commercial use of electric cars was 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 batteriesthe nickel–iron batterywas favored by Edison for use in electric cars.
EVs were among the earliest automobiles, and before the preeminence of light, powerful internal combustion engines, 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 per charge.
File:Seattle City Light Superintendent Gordon Vickery with prototype electric car, 1973.jpg|thumb|upright|A charging station in Seattle shows an AMC Gremlin, modified to take electric power; it had a range of about on one charge, 1973
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. Several 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 seldom marketed as 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, the electric vehicle range could not compete with the ICE. Finally, the initiation of mass production of gasoline-powered vehicles by Henry Ford in 1913 significantly reduced 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. Still, it was acquitted of conspiring to monopolize the provision of transportation services.
The Copenhagen Summit, conducted amid a severe observable climate change brought on by human-made greenhouse gas emissions, was held in 2009. During the summit, more than 70 countries developed plans to reach net zero eventually. For many countries, adopting more EVs will help reduce the use of gasoline. In recent years, the market for electric off-road motorcycles, including dirt bikes, has seen significant growth. This trend is driven by advancements in battery technology and increasing demand for recreational electric vehicles.
Experimentation
In January 1990, General Motors President introduced its EV concept two-seater, the "Impact", at the Los Angeles Auto Show. That September, the California Air Resources Board mandated major-automaker sales of EVs, in phases starting in 1998. From 1996 to 1998 GM produced 1117 EV1s, 800 of which were made available through three-year leases.Chrysler, Ford, GM, Honda, and Toyota also produced limited numbers of EVs for California drivers during this period. In 2003, upon the expiration of GM's EV1 leases, GM discontinued them. The discontinuation has variously been attributed to:
- the auto industry's successful federal court challenge to California's zero-emissions vehicle mandate,
- a federal regulation requiring GM to produce and maintain spare parts for the few thousand EV1s and
- the success of the oil and auto industries' media campaign to reduce public acceptance of EVs.
Ford released a number of their Ford Ecostar delivery vans into the market. Honda, Nissan and Toyota also repossessed and crushed most of their EVs, which, like the GM EV1s, had been available only by closed-end lease. After public protests, Toyota sold 200 of its RAV4 EVs; they later sold at over their original forty-thousand-dollar price. Later, BMW of Canada sold off a number of Mini EVs when their Canadian testing ended.
The production of the Citroën Berlingo Electrique stopped in September 2005. Zenn started production in 2006 but ended by 2009.