Rising gasoline prices may just make other forms of alternative means of transportation become more attractive. One of the ways not to be affected by the rising prices of gas is to have an alternative means of travel. Of course, saving up on gasoline use may help in some way, but such actions may still leave one affected with the rising prices of gas. A better way would be trying to use a mode of transportation aside from one that makes use of fuel aside from gasoline. One such example is the use of an electric car.
An electric car is one type of an alternative vehicle. It makes use of electricity as its primary power source. Instead of an internal combustion engine, the electric car, also commonly called as an EV or electric vehicle, has an electric motor to make the vehicle move. It is an alternative fuel vehicle that does not use refined fossil oil for fuel.
Electric cars get electricity for power by means of electric battery packs built on board. One of the advantages of using electric vehicles or EV's is that they are environmentally friendly. Unlike fossil fuel that emits a number of pollutants into the air when being used, the use of electricity for power does not do so, except that the power plants that may produce them do. But with using electric cars, the emission of harmful pollutants may be reduced substantially. Less cars using fossils fuel and gasoline would help make this possible. And someday, when more electric power is sourced from nuclear, solar, wind and hydro-electric power plants, pollutant emissions will even be reduced more.
Performance-wise, electric cars offer smoother and noiseless operation that cars relying on gasoline. Electric cars provide stronger acceleration and the electric motor requires lesser maintenance than the internal combustion engines of cars using gasoline and other fossil fuels. By using electricity through batteries, energy conversion is more efficient. Electric motors makes use of 75 percent of the chemical energy converted into electricity to run the car. Internal combustion engines or ICE's only are able to make use about 20 percent of the energy stored in gasoline to power the vehicle.
If most think that the electric car is a recent invention, then they are mistaken. The electric vehicle is in fact one of the earliest vehicles known to exist. Small electric powered vehicles even predate the development of the diesel and gasoline engines. The earliest electric carriage was built between 1832 and 1839. The development of other electric cars also increased for some time during the 1860's along with the improvement of the storage battery. It was even the electric cars that held many of the speed and distance records during this time. But unfortunately, the advent of the internal combustion engines came during the early 1900's, which led to the decrease in the use of electric cars.
With the appearance of the more powerful and affordable diesel and gasoline powered cars starting in the early 1900's, the market for electric cars slowly disappeared. Although there were still electric cars being made, those that do exist were being produced for specialized applications. One of the most common use for the electric vehicle today may be found in the golf carts as a primary mode of compact transport in golf courses. But because of the rising gasoline prices as well as the worsening pollution, there has been an renewed demand for the less polluting alternative electric vehicles in recent years.
