Electric Automobile Technology

Summary

Electric vehicles have been in use even longer than internal combustion engine cars. With environmental issues resulting from the modern use of internal combustion engines, the automotive industry is intensifying its efforts to produce novel machines that run on electricity. Many cars come with drivetrains that can accept electric propulsion, offering quieter, healthier transportation options. Although many consumers seem to shy away from completely electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles that use both internal combustion engines and electric power have become popular.

Definition and Basic Principles

Electric vehicles are driven by an electric motor. The electricity for this motor can come from different sources. In vehicle technology, electrical power is usually provided by batteries or fuel cells. The main advantages of these devices are that they are silent, operate with a high efficiency, and do not have tailpipe emissions harmful to humans and the environment. In hybrid vehicles, two or more motors coexist in the vehicle. When large quantities of power are required rapidly, the power is provided by combusting fuels in the internal combustion engine. When driving is steady, or the car is idling at a traffic light, the car is entirely driven by the electric motor, thereby cutting emissions while providing the consumer with the normal range typically associated with traditional cars that would rely entirely on internal combustion engines. Electric vehicles make it possible for drivers to avoid having to recharge at a station. Recharging can occur at home, at work, and in parking structures, quietly, cleanly, and without involving potentially carcinogenic petroleum products.

Background and History

Electric vehicles have been in use since the early 1890s. Early electric vehicles had many advantages over their combustion engine competitors. They had no smell, emitted no vibration, and were quiet. They also did not need gear changes, a mechanical problem that made early combustion engine cars cumbersome. In addition, the torque exhibited by an electric engine is superior to the torque generated by an equivalent internal combustion engine. However, battery technology was not yet sufficiently developed, and consequently, as a result of low charge, storage capacity in the batteries, and rapid developments in internal combustion engine vehicle technology, electric vehicles declined on the international markets in the early 1900s.

At the heart of electric vehicles is the electric motor, a relatively simple device that converts electric energy into motion by using magnets. This technology is typically credited to the English chemist and physicist Michael Faraday, who discovered electromagnetic induction in 1831. These motors require some electrical power, which is typically provided by batteries, as it was done in the early cars, or by fuel cells. Batteries were described as early as 1748 by one of the founding fathers of the United States, Benjamin Franklin. These devices can convert chemically stored energy into a flow of electrons by converting the chemicals present in the battery into different chemicals. Depending on the materials used, some of these reactions are reversible, which means that by applying electricity, the initial chemical can be recreated and the battery reused. The development of fuel cells is typically credited to the English lawyer and physicist Sir William Grove in 1839, who discovered that flowing hydrogen and air over the surfaces of platinum rods in sulfuric acid creates a current of electricity and leads to the formation of water. The devices necessary to develop an electric car had been around for many decades before they were first assembled into a vehicle.

A major circumstance that led to the commercial success of combustion engine vehicles over electric vehicles was the discovery and mining of cheap and easily available oil. Marginal improvements in battery technology compared with internal combustion engine technology occurred during the twentieth century. As a result of stricter emissions standards near the end of the twentieth century, global battery research began to reemerge and has significantly accelerated. Some early results of this research are on the market.

During the 1990s, oil was still very cheap, and consumers, especially in North America, demanded heavier and larger cars with stronger motors. During this decade, General Motors (GM) developed an electric vehicle called the EV1, which gained significant, though brief, international positive attention before it was taken off the market shortly after its introduction. All produced new cars were destroyed, and the electric vehicle program was shut down. The development of electric vehicles was then left to other companies.

Barely twenty years later, following a significant negative impact on the car manufacturing companies in North America from the 2009 financial crisis and their earlier abandonment of research and development of electric car technology, North American companies tried to catch up with the electric vehicle technology of the global vehicle manufacturing industry. During the hiatus, global competitors surpassed North American companies by creating modern, fast, useful electric vehicles such as the Nissan Cube from Japan and the BMW ActiveE models from Germany. GM made a full turnaround after receiving government financial incentives to develop battery-run vehicles and developed the Chevrolet Volt, which arrived on the market in 2011. Similar to hybrid cars, the Volt had a standard battery, but because early twenty-first century batteries were not yet meeting desired performance levels, the Volt also had a small engine to extend its range. Installing two different power sources in a vehicle, one electric and one combustion-based, makes sense to develop a product that has lower emissions but the same range as combustion-engine-based vehicles. Despite selling more than 150,000 units, GM discontinued the model in 2018. Within a few years, the company was introducing multiple electric and hybrid vehicles, including all-electric versions of popular models such as the Chevy Silverado truck.

How It Works

Power Source.Gasoline, which is mainly a chemical called octane, is a geologic product of animals and plants that lived many millions of years ago. They stored the energy of the Sun either directly from photosynthesis or through digestion of plant matter. The solar energy that is chemically stored in gasoline is released during combustion.

The storage of energy in batteries occurs through different chemicals, depending on the type of battery. For example, car-starter lead-acid batteries use metal lead and ceramic lead oxide to store energy. During discharge, both these materials convert into yet another chemical called lead sulfate. When a charge is applied to the battery, the original lead and lead oxide are recreated from the lead sulfate. Over time, some lead and lead oxide are lost in the battery as they separate from the main material. This can be seen as black dust swimming in the sulfuric acid of a long-used battery and indicates that the battery can no longer be recharged to its full initial storage capacity. This happens to all types of batteries. Modern lithium-ion batteries in vehicles and mobile phones use lithium-cobalt/nickel/manganese oxide and lithium graphite. These batteries use lithium ions to transport the charges around, allowing the liberated electrons to be used in an electric motor. Other batteries use zinc to store energy—for example, in small button cells. Toxic materials such as mercury and cadmium have for some years been used in specific types of batteries, but have mostly been phased out because of the potential leaching of these materials into groundwater after the batteries' disposal.

Fuel cells do not use a solid material to store their charge. Instead, low-temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells use gases such as hydrogen and liquid ethanol (the same form of alcohol found in vodka) or methanol as fuels. These materials are pumped over the surface of the fuel cells, and in the presence of noble-metal catalysts, the protons in these fuels are broken away from the fuel molecule and transported through the electrolyte membrane to form water and heat in the presence of air. The liberated electrons can, just as in the case of batteries, be used to drive an electric motor. Other types of fuel cells, such as molten carbonate fuel cells and solid oxide fuel cells, can use fuels such as carbon in the form of coal, soot, or old rubber tires and operate at 800 degrees Celsius with a very high efficiency.

Converting Electricity into Motion. Most electric motors use a rotatable magnet, the polarity of which can be reversed inside a permanent magnet. Once electricity is available to an electric motor, electrons, traveling through an electric wire and coiled around a shaft that can be magnetized, generate an electrical field that polarizes the shaft. As a result, the shaft is aligned within the external permanent magnet since reverse polarities in magnets are attracted to each other. If the polarity of the rotatable shaft is now reversed by changing the electron flow, the magnet reverses polarity and rotates 180 degrees. If the switching of the magnetic polarity is precisely timed, constant motion will be created. Changes in rotational speed can be achieved by changing the frequency of the change in polarization. The rotation generated by an electric motor can then be used like the rotation generated by an internal combustion engine by transferring it to the wheels of the vehicle.

Research and Development. Many components of electric vehicles can be improved by research and development. In the electric motor, special magnetic glasses can be used that magnetize rapidly with few losses to heat, and the magnet rotation can occur in a vacuum and by using low-friction bearings. Materials research of batteries has resulted in higher storage capacities, lower overall mass, faster recharge cycles, and low degradation over time. However, significant further improvements can still be expected from this type of research as the fundamental understanding of the processes occurring in batteries becomes better understood.

Novel fuel cells are being developed with the goal of making them cheaper by using non-precious-metal catalysts that degrade slowly with time and are reliable throughout the lifetime of the electric motor. The US Department of Energy has set specific lifetime and performance targets to which all these devices have to adhere to be useful on the commercial market. The main factor preventing deep mass-market penetration remains cost, but that is continuously addressed by research and development of novel batteries and fuel cells that are lighter, use less expensive precious-metal catalysts, last longer, and are more reliable than previous devices. Since the early 2010s, the development of these devices has significantly accelerated, especially because of international funding that is being poured into clean-energy technologies.

There are, however, disadvantages to all energy-conversion technologies. Internal combustion engines require large amounts of metals, including iron, chromium, nickel, manganese, and other alloying elements. They also require very high temperatures in forges during production. Additionally, petroleum-based fuels contain carcinogenic chemicals, and the exhausts are potentially dangerous to humans and the environment, even when catalytic converters are used. To function well, these devices require large amounts of expensive and rare noble metals such as palladium and platinum. The highest concentrations of oil deposits have been found in politically volatile regions, and oil developments in those regions have been shown to increase local poverty and cause severe local environmental problems.

Batteries require large quantities of rare-earth elements such as lanthanum. Most of these elements are almost exclusively mined in China, which holds a monopoly on the pricing and availability of these elements. Some batteries use toxic materials such as lead, mercury, or cadmium, although the use of these elements is being phased out in Europe. Lithium-ion batteries can rapidly and explosively discharge when short-circuited and are also considered a health risk. Electricity is required to recharge batteries, and it is often produced off-site in reactors whose emissions and other waste can be detrimental to human health and the environment.

Fuel cells require catalysts that are mostly made from expensive noble metals. Severe price fluctuations make it difficult to identify a stable or predictable cost for these devices. The fuels used in fuel cells, mostly hydrogen and methanol or ethanol, have to be produced, stored, and distributed. Into the 2020s, the majority of the hydrogen used is derived via a water-gas shift reaction, where oxygen is stripped off the water molecules and binds with carbon molecules from methane gas, producing hydrogen with carbon dioxide as a by-product. The process requires large quantities of natural gas. Methanol or ethanol can be derived from plant matter, but if it is derived from plants originally intended as food, food prices may increase and arable land once used for food production then produces fuels instead.

Nevertheless, while the advantages and disadvantages of cleaner energy technologies, such as fuel cells and batteries, must be weighed against their ecological and economic impacts, it is important to remember that they are significantly cleaner than conventional internal combustion engine technologies.

Applications and Products

Batteries. Battery technology still needs to be developed to be lighter without reducing the available charge. This means that the battery's energy density (both by mass and by volume) needs to increase to improve a vehicle's range. Furthermore, faster recharge cycles have to be developed that will not negatively impact the degradation of the batteries. Overnight recharge cycles are possible and good for home use, but a quick recharge during a shopping trip should allow the car to regain a significant proportion of its original charge. Repeated recharge cycles at different charge levels and long-time operation with large temperature fluctuations should not detrimentally affect the microstructure of the batteries, so the power density of the batteries will remain intact. Furthermore, operation in very cold environments, where the charge carriers inside the battery are less mobile, should be realized for good market penetration. The introduction of Chevrolet's Volt into the North American market in March 2011 resulted in disappointment, as customers appeared unwilling to pay a premium for battery-operated cars. Stricter policies enforcing the conversion of more cars into electric vehicles are necessary to change the market, especially in North America. In 2021, President Joe Biden set a goal of making half of all new passenger vehicle sales in the United States electric by 2030. Likewise, Canada set a mandatory zero-emission target for all new light-duty cars and passenger trucks by 2035.

Personal Vehicles. GM's EV1 was an attempt to market electric vehicles in North America in the 1990s. It was fast, lightweight, and had all the amenities consumers required, but the manufacturer discontinued it because it was not commercially viable. The 2011 edition of GM's Chevrolet Volt was almost indistinguishable from other GM station wagons. Still, the cost of the battery-powered car proved too high for a market that was used to very cheap vehicles with internal combustion engines. Electric vehicle technology is arguably much more advanced in Asia. Asian vehicle manufacturers were up to ten years ahead of the rest of the world in producing hybrid-electric vehicles, and they are set up to be ahead in the manufacturing of completely electric vehicles as well. For example, battery-only vehicles such as the Toyota iQ and the Nissan Leaf can drive up to 100 miles on a single battery charge with performance similar to that of an internal combustion engine car. European manufacturers, such as Renault, partnered with Nissan to avoid being left behind in the electric vehicle business and offered their first electric vehicle lineup to the European markets in 2011. Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn said in 2011 that battery technology was not mature enough for vehicles, but in 2019, the company announced a partnership with Ford to produce electric vehicles. By the 2020s, the partnership was preparing additional models. Car manufacturer Fisker developed plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and, in 2022, was producing the all-electric Ocean. Tesla Motors has produced multiple electric vehicles for the North American market. Among these are the Model 3 compact sedan, the Model X luxury SUV, and the Model S mid-sized luxury sedan. However, while demand outside North America is large, demand in the United States is low. Sales of electric vehicles increased more than threefold from 2016 to 2020, but most were in major metropolitan areas. With major international governmental tax incentives in place, all vehicle manufacturers are developing at least some studies of electric vehicles for auto shows.

Utility Vehicles and Trucks. To develop a green image, some municipalities have switched some or all of their fleets to electric vehicles based on fuel cells or batteries. Ford has created a model called Transit Connect, an electrified version of its Ford Transporter. Navistar developed an electric truck, the eStar, and sold it in the United States and Canada for several years. Smith Electric Vehicles has developed several models, such as the Newton, for the expected demand for electric-utility vehicles. Additionally, many small companies are producing small utility trucks, such as the Italian manufacturer Alkè. The products of these companies are small, practical, multi-purpose vehicles for cities and municipalities.

Bicycles and Scooters. Small electric motor-assisted bicycles and scooters have been used since the early twentieth century. Other small electric vehicles include wheelchairs, skateboards, golf carts, lawnmowers, and other equipment that typically does not require much power. For customers looking for faster vehicles, Energica, Zero, Harley-Davidson, and others produce electric motorcycles. These vehicles perform similarly to an internal combustion motorcycle but lack any tailpipe or noise emissions.

Mass Transit. In North America, many cities had electric public transit similar to the San Francisco cable cars until they were sold to car manufacturers who decommissioned them. As a result, most public transit systems relied heavily on diesel-engine buses for decades. Some public transit companies have switched to battery-electric transit buses (BEBs). From 2018 to 2021, the number of BEBs on order or operating in the United States grew 112 percent. By January 2022, California had almost 1,400 BEBs on the streets or on order. Because of the high cost of the vehicles, transit agencies relied on federal funds to cover up to 85 percent of the purchase price. The Department of Transportation’s Low or No Emissions Grant Program allowed cities across America to implement BEPs in the early and mid-2020s as demand surged. Cities such as Seattle that use electric overhead lines to power trolley buses, trams, and trains have had a much higher impact on actual transported passengers. All these systems constitute electric vehicles but must have electric wires in place before they can operate. Once the wires are in place, the public transit systems can operate silently and cleanly, using electricity provided through an electric grid instead of a battery or a fuel cell.

Forklifts. In spaces with little ventilation, the exhaust of internal combustion engines can be harmful and potentially toxic to humans, which is why warehouse forklifts are typically powered by electric engines. Traditionally, these engines are powered by batteries, but the recharging time of several hours often requires the purchase of at least twice as many batteries as forklifts—or twice as many forklifts as drivers—to be able to work around the clock. Using fuel cells as a power source, forklifts such as the ones produced by Vancouver-based company Cellex and by Portland, Oregon–based Hyster Yale require only a short time at a hydrogen refueling station before being ready for use. Such a short downtime of fuel-cell-powered electric forklifts compared with battery-powered forklifts allows warehouses to operate with less machinery, cutting back on the initial capital cost of operation.

Careers and Course Work

As gasoline prices increase, it becomes more important to have lighter vehicles that require less material during manufacturing, as these have to be mined and transported around the world and machined using energy from fossil fuels. Additionally, vehicles should become more efficient to reduce the operating costs for vehicle owners. All these issues are addressed by selecting and designing better, novel materials. Those interested in a career in electric vehicle manufacturing or design should study materials, mechanical, chemical, mining, or environmental engineering for designing novel cars, highly efficient motors, better batteries, and cheaper, more durable fuel cells. The mathematical modeling of the electrochemistry involved in electric motors is also very important to understand how to improve electric devices, and studies in chemistry and physics may lead to improvements in the efficiency of vehicles. After earning a bachelor's degree in one of the abovementioned areas, an internship would be ideal. After an internship, career paths vary. In the research sector, for example, working on catalysts for batteries and fuel cells in a chemical company could include developing new materials involving inexpensive, nontoxic, durable, noble metals that are at least as efficient as traditional catalysts. This is only one example of many potential careers in the global electric vehicle market.

Social Context and Future Prospects

Energy consumption per capita is increasing continuously. The majority of power production uses the combustion of fossil fuels with additional contributions from hydroelectric and nuclear energy conversion. These energy-conversion methods create varying kinds of pollution and environmental dangers, such as habitat destruction, toxic waste production, or radiation, as seen in nuclear reactors hit by earthquakes, equipment malfunction, or operator errors. The increasing demand for a finite quantity of fossil fuels has the potential to increase the cost of these resources significantly. Another undesirable consequence of the thermochemical conversion of fossil fuels by combustion is environmental contamination. The reaction products from combustion can harm humans on a local scale and have been cited as contributing to global climate change. The remaining ash of coal combustion contains heavy metals and radioactive isotopes that can severely damage health.

Furthermore, fossil fuel resources are unevenly distributed worldwide, leading to geopolitical unrest as a result of the competition for resource access. For example, as a consequence of upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa in 2011, oil and food prices soared. Similar disruptions occurred during the global COVID-19 pandemic that began in early 2020, during which time consumption decreased significantly. When demand increased, fuel costs soared.

Society's energy demands need to be satisfied in a more appropriate, sustainable, and efficient way. Cleaner devices for energy conversion are batteries and fuel cells. They operate more efficiently, produce less pollution, are modular, and are less likely to fail mechanically since they have fewer moving parts than energy conversion based on combustion.

The advantages of electric vehicles are clear—a world in which all or most vehicles are quiet, with no truck engine brakes to rattle windows from a mile away and no lawnmowers disturbing the quiet or fresh air of a neighborhood. A society with no harmful local emissions from any of the machines being used, allowing people to walk by a leaf blower without having to hold their breath and to live next to major roads without risking chronic diseases from continually breathing in harmful emissions. All this could already be humanity's present-day reality if people were willing to change their habits and simply use electric motors instead of combustion engines.

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