What is an Electric Car?

@Emilski - Those are all good points. I think that's why hybrids are the best of both worlds at this point.

Unfortunately, I don't own a hybrid, but I've gotten to drive a couple for work. They easily get 75+ MPG, which is amazing when you think about it. Also, hybrids aren't nearly as expensive as purely electric cars. You'll never get stranded, either.

I have heard that the batteries wear out soon on some of them. Conveniently enough, it's often right when the warranty expires. Interesting how that works.

@Burlap - You're absolutely right. I don't know why anyone would buy an electric car at this point. There just don't seem to be many redeeming qualities to it.

I was looking at them the other day, and I couldn't believe how expensive they were! You could buy a sports car for the price of some of them. Not to mention, I've heard it's kind of a pain to charge them.

My biggest complaint would be their traveling distance. Most of them can't go more than 100 miles without needing recharged. That's great if you're driving around a city, but anyone who does real traveling will still have to have a gas car and take on the costs associated with that.

I was no aware that electric cars had been around for so long. I know they came out with a documentary several years ago called something like "Who Killed the Electric Car?" I never saw it, though. Maybe I should find it and watch it.

I am really interested in learning about things like this, but there just don't seem to be a lot of good sources that lay it out as clearly as what's here.

@NightChef - I think that logic is a little bit flawed, though. Yes, electric cars do eliminate the need for gas in those cars. At the same time, though, you have to think about where the electricity comes from.

A lot of people dissociate electricity from its source because it just sort of comes out of the wall. At the current time, though, the vast majority of our electricity comes from fossil fuels, and that isn't changing for several years.

Granted, the amount of fuel needed to produce the electricity for a car is still less than that needed in gasoline. People should just remember that because it's electric doesn't mean it has no impact on the environment.

The reality exists when it comes to electric vehicles in the American society today, we simply do not have an electric vehicle that can compete in both economy and performance with our current combustion engine models. Until we actually see a vehicle come from a major manufacturer that has the ability to accelerate as well as travel just as far as their competing models will we actually see a turned towards the purchase of electric vehicles by our mass society.

Until then, electric car sales are simply going to be dismal. After many failed attempts of different types of electric vehicles, third-party manufacturers and obscure, fly-by-night operations will attempt to create products that are oversold and under performing. It's sad but true but we truly do not have an actually competitive electric vehicle on the market today.

Electric car technology has vastly improved over the last two decades, and even during the 1970s we were able to see the advent of electric vehicles and their technologies becoming an actual reality for the American consumer. Small-scale electric vehicles like the ev1 electric car or the GEM electric car have started to turn people's opinion on the subject of electric vehicles.

While a hybrid electric cars are available the market today are an improvement from combustion only based vehicles, they are somewhat of a compromise that is simply not worth the extra effort and I truly think that manufacturers of vehicles should make headway into developing electric exclusive vehicles.

One very commonly overlooked fact about electric vehicles that people seem to ignore when advocating their mass introduction into our society is the actual batteries that are needed inside of an electric vehicle. These costly batteries are not cheap nor are they cheap for our environment to be able to recycle. The heavy metals and toxic chemicals used to develop these batteries mean that we are introducing a nasty toxic mix back into the environment when these first generations of electric vehicles are obsolete.

The battery technology itself is another issue. While most of the alternative vehicles that are available from manufacturers today are hybrid electric cars, true electric vehicles are far and few between. Only a handful of models are actually available and only a couple of them are actually being manufactured on a wide scale and in production.

Until the battery technology overcomes some of the basic physical constraints of what it can output, we are limited in the use of our electric vehicles. Until then we are stuck with either expensive or under performing electric vehicles.

The concept of electric cars is amazing what I can't understand about our economy today is why we have not embraced the use of them. It seems to make sense, that the utilization of electricity is produced on a mass scale would be extremely more efficient than a small combustion engine burning precious fossil fuels within an individual automobile.

I truly think that it is a public perception issue concerning the use of electric cars that people can't seem to get over. Once we embrace the concept of electric cars we will be saving our environment and generations to come the nausea and hardships of the damaged environment.

It seems to me that the misinformation concerning electric cars is what is making the public perception difficult for manufacturers that are trying to introduce electric vehicles. With so many motor enthusiasts caught up in the use of combustion engines and the way that they sound and feel, it will be very difficult to turn this tide of public opinion.

maybe that you guys have some really great stuff. I need more on turbine motors the Navy, yes the United States Navy. there big boats used to run with a series of turbines and a little different configuration of transmissions.

and I would be loving it if I could complete my assignments In Alternative fuels class... UVU ( Utah Valley University)