Early electric car between 1890 and 1915
Electric vehicles have never been popular, certainly at least since the internal combustion engine was developed and oil was found around the world in very large quantities.
The electric vehicles developed in the 19th century were, by today's standards, very basic and with technology which was on the verge of great breakthroughs.
Then main technology which has not allowed electric vehicles to be widely used is the fact that the batteries required to power electric vehicles have not yet had the breakthrough which they require for the vehicles, in general, to become more and more usable and popular.
However, what needs to be included in the equation is the development in the 21st century of vast renewable energy technologies which allows so many households and business establishments to install enough power generation to sustain fleets of electric vehicles or vehicles for city daily driving not requiring vast differences for their daily trips.
There is now sufficient advance in battery development to allow more people in general to be able to commute to and from work, take families daily to destinations not requiring vast travel distance and to be powered and charged at home and/or at work.
Newspapers carry supplements on vehicles of all sorts and these sections of the papers are called "Drive" or "Cars Guides" or names similar to these.
In years gone by there have been the occasional articles about developments in electric vehicles and the technologies used to drive the vehicles, but lately, at least since the beginning of 2014, such articles have all but dried up.
Australian car manufacturing industries are busy grinding to a halt with the last 3 locally manufactured car organisations about to close shop.
Nowhere does there seem to have been any suggestion that electric vehicle manufacture could help sustain at least one of them in Australia.
To add to the woes of vehicle disappearance, one of the few local industries which has had to shut up shop in the last few years was an enterprising organisation which was converting petrol engined cars to electric drive.
One day, particularly at the rate of world consumption as it is in the 21st century, oil supplies will diminish to the extent that vehicles relying on oil to run and maintain them will start running out.
The roads are choked with vehicles and noxious gases and we are all slowly being poisoned by the foul air we are forced to breathe!
Electric vehicles offer clean alternatives with so much in alternative renewable energy sources now available. All that is required is a few far-sighted and wealthy entepreneurs willing to put a few million here and a few million there into developing and installing the technologies for running and maintaining electric vehicles and Australia could be at the forefront of this sort of development.
As I have said in many of my blog posts, don't hold your breath!
If you have read as far as the end of my overheated rave about electric cars, have a look at my web pages and get some idea of what I am talking about:
Electric Vehicles Part 1
Electric Vehicles Part 2
Electric Vehicles Part 3
Electric Vehicles Part 4
Electric Vehicles Part 5
This is an electric van from Renault - circa 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment