Impacts of Automobiles on Environment
How has car design changed over time?
From the past few centuries, car designs have created, improved the increase in car efficiency and performance over time.
Cars became widely available in the early 20th century.
Let us first talk, who discovered the first automobile car capable of human transportation.
Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot was a French inventor who built the world’s first steam-powered capable of human transportation in the 17th century, the “fardier à vapeur”.
Karl Friedrich Benz was a German engine designer and automotive engineer, who invented the first gas-powered car, his first car created in 1885, which had three wheels. He received a patent for the motorcar in 1886.
In 1890, William Morrison built the first four-wheeled electric car in the United States.
In 1898, Ferdinand Porsche (founder of the Porsche company) did something Unexpected. He created the first gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle with electricity and gas and several other developments.
Why are electric cars better than gas?
The research industry has shown that electric cars are better for the environment. The high cost of gasoline and pollution concerns have helped electric vehicles make a comeback.
- Electric cars produce no carbon dioxide emissions when driving. They are better for the environment.
- Electricity can be a renewable resource, gasoline cannot.
- They require less expensive and less frequent maintenance.
- It reduces air pollution.
- Electric cars give us cleaner streets making our towns and cities a better place.
- They are quieter than gas vehicles
Over a year, just one electric vehicle on the roads can save an average of 1.5 million grams of CO2.
How does electric car production affect the environment?
- Making electric cars does use a lot of energy.
- Electric cars have a shorter range than gas-powered cars
- The cycle of producing a vehicle starts with raw materials extracted, refined, transported, and manufactured into several components. Later, assemble to make the car itself. This process is very much the same in both conventional and electric.
Since the electric cars market is growing, the more interesting it gets to figure out how to recycle them. So the chances are that a heavy recycling industry for these batteries will keep increasing and allowing electric cars to become greener.
The solution for this might is reusing these batteries and giving them a second life to support the electric grid of buildings and store energy from wind or solar electricity sources. It would also help offset the environmental impacts of making the batteries since they return over a period.
Electric cars store energy in large batteries (the larger they are, the bigger their range is) have high environmental costs.
Conventional vehicles use gasoline or diesel to power an internal combustion engine, Hybrid also uses an internal combustion engine and can be fueled like regular cars but also have an electric motor and battery.
There is a difference between traditional thermal cars and electric cars transforming potential (stored) energy into kinetic (movement) energy.
In thermal cars, the energy is stored in a chemical form and released through a chemical reaction inside the engine.
On the other hand, despite having chemically stored energy, electric cars release it electrochemically without combustion, thanks to lithium-ion batteries. It means that there is no fuel being burned and therefore no air pollution through CO2 happening while driving. They are also more efficient than fossil cars.
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