1.1 History
Electric Vehicles
Electric vehicles, as the name suggests, run at least partially on electricity. Instead of fossil fuel-driven internal combustion engines, these vehicles are powered by electric motors for propulsion. The electric motor, in turn, derives energy from rechargeable batteries, solar panels or fuel cells.
Historically, electric cars have been around for more than a century. Interestingly, the first known electric car was built in Aberdeen, Scotland way back in 1837. Exhibited at the Royal Scottish Society of Arts Exhibition in 1841, the vehicle, weighing seven tons, could carry a load of six tons at speed of around four miles per hour over a distance of one and a half miles.
Its arrival coincided with the growing status of electricity as one of the preferred methods for vehicular propulsion. Additionally, with the invention of rechargeable batteries in 1859, innovations around EVs slowly, but steadily, started emerging. Incidentally, towards the end of the 19th century, battery-powered electric cabs started plying on the streets of London and New York.
The first known electric car was built in Aberdeen, Scotland way back in 1837.
In London, for instance, Walter C. Bersey built a fleet of electric taxis, called “hummingbirds”, which became operational in 1897. Around the same time, New York-based company, Samuel’s Electric Carriage and Wagon Company, designed around 62 electric cabs.
Despite its early popularity, however, electric vehicles witnessed a decline globally in the first half of the 20th century. Lack of proper charging infrastructure and simultaneous improvements in road infrastructure resulted in the dwindling popularity of EVs. At the same time, with the advancements of the automobile industry, car owners were increasingly looking for vehicles with greater range and speed than electric cars.
However, by the 1960s, EVs once again started garnering the interest of automakers. In 1959, for instance, the American Motor Corporation entered into a joint research agreement with Sonotone Corporation to develop an electric car powered by a “self-charging” battery.
In the decades since then, numerous electric car concepts have been showcased around the globe, including the Scottish Aviation Scamp (1965), the Electrovair (1966), the Electron (1977). Tracing the history of electric vehicles, we found that the first modern version of the electric car, as we know it today, was built in the early 2000s.
In 2004, Elon Musk-founded Tesla Motors started working on the Tesla Roadster, which was the first highway-legal all-electric car running on lithium-ion batteries. Over the years, most carmakers have jumped on the EV bandwagon, with Tesla, Ford, Nissan, Hyundai, Toyota and others leading the race.
Hybrid Vehicles
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it was none other than Dr. Ferdinand Porsche who built the first car to combine an internal-combustion engine with electric motors. The car, which was constructed in 1898, featured a gasoline engine that was used to power a generator that fed four electric motors, one per wheel hub. The car’s range was 40 miles.
By 1905, however, Henry Ford had begun mass-producing inexpensive cars with gasoline engines, hammering the first nails into the coffin of the early hybrid models.
By 1905, however, Henry Ford had begun mass-producing inexpensive cars with gasoline engines, hammering the first nails into the coffin of the early hybrid models.
Commonly considered to be the company that popularized hybrids, Toyota had its first hybrid prototype on the road in 1976. Two decades later, the first Prius was introduced to the Japanese market in 1997, the same year that Audi introduced the Audi Duo, a hybrid based on the A4 Avant, to the European market. Though Audi and Toyota mass-marketed the first modern gas/electric hybrids in Europe and Asia, it was Honda that brought hybrid technology to Americans with the introduction of the 1999 Insight. A year later, the Toyota Prius went on sale in the U.S.
1.2 Overview of electric and hybrid vehicle
Electric vehicles touted as the future of mobility, are fitted with onboard batteries which, unlike conventional fuel tanks, can be charged using electricity. These batteries, in turn, store and use the energy needed to power a set of electric motors, which ultimately propels the car forward.
Because an electric car is devoid of clutch, gearbox and even an exhaust pipe, it is significantly quieter and offers a smoother ride than conventional gasoline-driven vehicles. When fully charged, a standard EV is capable of covering somewhere between 150 km to 170 km before it needs to be recharged.
One of the chief features of electric vehicles is that they can be plugged into off-board power sources for charging. Essentially, there are two types of EVs: all-electric vehicles (AEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). AEVs, in turn, consist of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and fuel cell electric Vehicles (FCEVs). Both BEVs and FCEVs are charged from the electrical grid and are also usually capable of generating electricity through regenerative braking.
