The Fast and The Eco-Friendly
Prime Minister Boris Johnson earlier this month made an announcement that the UK Government aims to stop production of cars powered only by petrol and diesel by the year 2030. So, what other options are out there, and how do these types of vehicles work?
Electric Cars
This type of car is simple: plug into a charge point, and it uses electricity from the national grid. They then store the electricity in rechargeable batteries that power an electric motor, which turns the wheels.
There are three different types of electric vehicles available to buy at the moment:
- Plug-in electric — this type of electric car runs purely on electricity. and get all their power when they’re plugged in to charge. They don’t produce any emissions like traditional cars.
- Plug-in hybrid — These vehicles run on electricity but also have a traditional fuel engine so you can use diesel or petrol as well. If you run out of charge, the car will switch to using fuel. When it’s running on fuel, these cars will produce emissions but when they’re running on electricity, they won’t.
- Hybrid-electric — This type of car runs primarily on fuel like diesel or petrol, but they also have an electric battery too, which is recharged through regenerative breaking. These let you switch between using your fuel engine and using electric mode at the touch of a button.
Electric vehicles have 90% less moving parts than a regular car. The internal workings of this type of car include:
- Electric Engine/Motor — Provides power to rotate the wheels, and usually uses AC (alternating current).
- Inverter — Converts the electric current in the form of DC (direct current) into AC.
- Drivetrain — This type of car has a single-speed transmission which sends power from the motor to the wheels.
- Batteries — This is where the electricity is stored. The larger the battery, the further the car can go in-between charges.
- Charger — This is where the car potentially plugs into an outlet.
Hydrogen Cars (Fuel Cell Vehicles)
Fuel cell vehicles use hydrogen gas to power an electric motor, which turns the wheels. Unlike regular combustion engines which run on petrol or diesel, fuel cell cars and trucks combine hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity. This means that hydrogen cars are technically a type of electric vehicle.
Converting hydrogen gas into electricity produces only heat and water as it’s byproducts, which means that fuel cell vehicles don’t create any air-pollution when they’re driven. Producing the hydrogen itself can produce greenhouse gas emissions, but even when the fuel comes from natural gas, today’s early fuel cell cars could potentially cut emissions by over 30 percent when compared with their combustion engine counterparts.
Solar Vehicles
Another type of electric vehicle include solar-powered ones. Cars of this type use solar panels to charge up an internal battery, which powers the motor and turns the wheels.
This type of vehicle isn’t as new as you might think, with the first solar-powered car made by General Motors being showcased in Chicago in 1955. It was too small to drive, however. The first drivable solar-powered vehicle was the Sion car, a hybrid electric vehicle that uses solar panels to recharge.
Back in 2016, scientists in Dubendorf, Switzerland were successful in building the world’s first ever solar airplane, which flew all around the world in 505 days. The Solar Impulse 2 plane was piloted by Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard, who navigated challenges like poor flying conditions, technical issues, and flying such a delicate aircraft such a long way. This experiment was the first of it’s kind to be successful, and was a huge step towards completely eco-friendly travel,