One of the low
selling points for electric vehicles is the relatively long charging time. Most
electric vehicles take 8 hours for a full charge with recent developments able
to recharge batteries 80% full in 30 minutes.
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| Electric Vehicle Source: Peter Griffin / www.publicdomainpictures.net |
However, 30 minutes
is still a long time for drivers that are used to driving gasoline or diesel
powered vehicles. These fossil fueled vehicles take minutes, if not seconds, to
refill. Furthermore, range anxiety, the fear that electric vehicles will
run out of charge before one can reach the destination is still a very large
issue.
New technologies
have been trying to combat these problems since the introduction of electric
vehicles to the market. More and more recharging stations are being built and
battery swapping procedures are being looked into to make electric vehicles
more acceptable to the consumers. There are also great efforts being put to
increasing their range.
Why electric
vehicles is also being developed vis-à-vis ethanol/biofueled vehicles is to
increase the options that we will have in the future in case we will have to
make that switch from fossil fueled vehicles to alternative fueled ones. Contrary
to the notion that electric vehicles contribute almost the same amount of
greenhouse gases to the atmosphere as fossil fueled vehicles, the point of
electric vehicle proponents is that if electric vehicles become widely used in
the future, controlling the source of greenhouse gas emissions will be much
easier because monitoring will only be done at the source i.e. power plants.
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