An electric car is a type of vehicle making use of electricity as its power source. It is considered as an alternative fuel vehicle that veers away from the use of the more polluting conventional cars using refined fossil oil as fuel. Instead of an internal combustion engine, the electric car makes use of electric motors and motor controllers in order to run.

Origins

The electric car is actually one of the earliest automobiles to exist. There were already small electric powered vehicles predate the development of the Otto Cycle from which diesel and gasoline engines were based from. The earliest electric carriage was built between 1832 and 1839.

The development of other electric cars increased sometime during the 1860's with the improvement of the storage battery. Before the advent of the internal combustion engines just before the 1900's, it was electric cars that held many speed and distance records.

With the emergence of the more powerful and affordable diesel and gasoline powered cars, the market for electric cars has all but disappeared. Some electric vehicles that do exist were being produced for niche applications.

The most common use for the electric vehicle today may be the golf cart used to take golfers to and fro different golf courses. Because of the rising gas prices as well as pollution, there has been an increasing demand for the less polluting electric vehicles in recent years.

Benefits

One of the main benefits of using an electric car is that it is less polluting than those running on fossil fuel. Electric cars have zero CO2 emissions unlike fossil fuel cars that emit this greenhouse gas into the atmosphere that is said to cause global warming. But there are also certain disadvantages that an electric car user may face.

Disadvantages

One of the disadvantages of using the electric car is that it may not yet be as efficient as their conventional fossil fuel counterparts. The use of electric batteries to power the electric car is still not as efficient and as affordable as using a diesel or gasoline vehicle.

Widespread use may not yet be as convenient for electric vehicles in terms of available infrastructure. No plan is yet in place to allow electric cars to be recharge anywhere in case they lose electric power.