Introduction
The world over is perturbed and impacted by the adverse effects of climate change, whose main contributor is fossil fuels’ burning. The transport sector contributes 24% of the global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions that destroy the ozone layer, 11% of this being from cars (Andor 453). Additionally, consumers underestimate vehicle maintenance costs by over 37%, especially on depreciation, insurance and tax, and repair costs (Andor 454).
The invention of electric vehicles (EVs) continues to be an attempt to provide an efficient transport system that eliminates or drastically reduces climate change and cost problems related to gasoline-powered infrastructure. The EVs idea is not new as it started in the eighteenth century with innovators in Hungary, and none thought their innovation would burgeon and shed light on the future of humanity’s transportation future. While critics cite high initial investment and recharging problems as great obstacles to a fully electric transport system, EVs are the future, as they will lower maintenance costs and CO2 emissions.
The Gasoline Vehicles
Early Inventions
Understanding the history of the transport infrastructure is essential in appreciating the need for EVs in the sector. Nicolas Joseph Cugnot is the automobile industry father who built the first vehicle in 1769 (Luparenko 260). However, Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz invented the first successful gasoline-powered vehicles based on his idea (Schwedes and Keichel 120-125). The automobile history is solely based on the internal combustion engine (ICE), the heart of every vehicle that brings the car’s functionality to life. The structure, design, and mechanism of ICE have evolved from the eighteenth century to the twenty-first century to increase efficiency. Despite the improvements, vehicles continue to emit huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.
History of ICE
The most significant inventions of the ICEs took place from the nineteenth century and the seventeenth century. A Dutch Physicist, Christian Huygens, was the first to design an ICE 1680 that was powered by gunpowder (Schwedes and Keichel 120). In 1807, Francois Isaac de Rivaz invented an ICE engine fueled with hydrogen and oxygen, a bold move to design a car model for his engine, but was unsuccessful. Many other inventions were made years later, but the most significant inventions in the automobile industry were Nicholas Otto’s, Rene Panhard’s, Emile Levassor’s, and Henry Ford’s, which provided insight into the car designs and functionality of the ICE engines. During these years, humans did not worry about climate change more than they needed a reliable transport system.
Nicholas Otto built the “Otto Cycle Engine,” the first practical four-stroke ICE engine built onto a motorcycle, which was universally adopted for all liquid-fueled vehicles in the twenty-first century. In 1890, business partners Rene Panhard and Emile Levassor emulated Daimler’s engine and built the first car, significantly contributing to the automotive body design that has remained phenomenal until today. The partners produced cars with change-speed gearboxes and clutches that are now standard on all autos. Levassor designed the first car with an engine at the front of the car and a rear-wheel-drive layout, a concept used in modern automobile designs (Orloff 432). Car production was a time-consuming process until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when Ford transformed the industry by installing the first conveyor belt assembly line that reduced manufacturing time and cost (Orloff 467-489). These early inventions transformed engine and car model designs and production, allowing most people to afford vehicles that would later become a menace to society.
Mechanism of ICE
The functioning of ICE is vital to this discussion as it explains the primary process by which CO2 emissions are produced. The ICE mechanism involves high-temperature combustion of fuel within the engine itself, involving an exothermic redox reaction between an oxidant and a fuel such as petrol or diesel. A fixed cylinder and a moving piston help in the conversion of the energy produced during ignition. During ICE combustion, the gases expand, pushing the piston and rotating a crankshaft, the backbone of an ICE that converts linear motion to a rotational one to support movement (Dado et al. 1-4). A gear system in the powertrain utilizes the crankshaft-converted rotational motion in driving a vehicle’s wheels (Dado et al. 15). An ICE’s combustion process is dependent on whether it is an ignition diesel engine or a spark-ignition gasoline engine. Regardless of which one a car uses, the process involves fossil fuels burning and damaging the climate.
Although both gasoline and diesel engines are four-stroke cycle engines, they differ in the supply and ignition of fuel. A four-stroke cycle engine requires four piston strokes per cycle completion, with the four cycles involving intake, compression, combustion, power stroke, and exhaust (Dado et al. 7-8). The spark-ignition engines mix fuel with air and induct into the cylinder during the intake whereby the piston compresses the mixture and is ignited by sparks, causing combustion. While ignition diesel engines induct and compress air only, diesel engines spray fuel on the hot compressed air at a measured rate, causing combustion. Albeit the ICE’s efficiency and automobile transformation, the increasing emissions, climate change damages, and car maintenance costs call for an environmentally sustainable solution, EVs.
Disadvantages of ICEs
Cost is the major disadvantage to the consumer as fuel prices soar globally. Industrialization and technological advancements have increased fuel demands worldwide, leading to fluctuating fuel prices. Furthermore, combustion within the engine system causes wearing and tearing, resulting in costly frequent repairs or eventual engine malfunction (Andor et al. 454). Although gasoline engines have a shorter life span than diesel engines, they all deteriorate with time, leading to depreciation costs to the consumer. Therefore, maintaining an ICE vehicle is costly, and consumers would be attracted to affordable alternatives such as EVs.
The second and most serious disadvantage of ICEs is their contribution to climate change. Green energy is clean and sustainable, and the global community aims at green energy to save future generations from adverse climatic changes. While the negative effects are already visible, failure to reverse the greenhouse effect will be detrimental to the inhabitants of this planet. The ICE vehicles exhaust hazardous gases into the air, affecting the ozone layer (Andor et al. 453). Since ICE vehicles are financially and environmentally disastrous, the invention of EVs promises a sustainable and affordable automobile.
The Electric Vehicles
The advent of electrically powered vehicles would greatly reduce climate change impacts. The EV invention dates back to the 1800s when Hungary innovators toyed with battery-powered vehicles. A Briton innovator, Robert Anderson, built the first crude electric carriage in the late 1800s (Saniuk 2). In the late nineteenth century, the French innovators borrowed Anderson’s concept to build their first electric car. In 1890, William Morrison’s six-passenger automobile transformed the electric car market in the United States (Saniuk 3). Morrison’s ‘electric car,’ which was more of an electrified wagon, moved at a speed of 14 miles per hour, sparking further interest in electric cars. Nevertheless, EV innovation was long ignored until gas shortages and environmental concerns revived interest in the industry.
Mechanism of Electric Vehicles
Electric motors continue to be important for a greener future even though the development of ICEs was a revolution in the transportation sector. The EVs, unlike the ICE vehicles, have electric motors acting as the vehicles’ hearts. The electric motor is powered by a sizable traction battery pack that is connected to charging apparatus. Unlike the ICE vehicles that emit gases into the environment through tailpipes, the EV does not have tailpipes or release any such chemicals. The EVs have several key components, including a battery, the charge port, the direct current (DC) converter, the electric traction motor, and a thermal system (Evtimov et al. 1). The various components harmoniously work together for efficient EV operations without burning fossil fuels.
The auxiliary battery provides electrical power to the EV, running the electric vehicle. In electrical power exhaustion, the charging port allows connection to an external power supply (Evitmov et al. 2). The traction battery pack stores high-voltage electricity to run the motor while the DC converter changes high-voltage electricity in the battery pack into a DC that runs the vehicle accessories and charge the auxiliary battery. The electric traction motor is the heart of the vehicle because it runs the wheels. The onboard charger converts the alternating current (AC) from the external power supply into DC power, charging the traction battery (Eviytmov et al. 4). The power electronic controller manages electrical energy flow, regulating the electric traction motor speed and torque produced. Since the electrical transmission is an exothermic process, the thermal transmission ensures optimum temperatures in the motor and other components. The EVs mechanism is environmental-friendly and cheaper to maintain compared to ICEs.
Trends in Electric Vehicles
The electric vehicle industry is one of the most creative and lucrative sectors in the world. For example, Tesla, a well-known manufacturer of electric vehicles, has reported a gross margin of almost 30% (Boudette). Various governments have formulated and even enacted legislation banning the sale of non-electric cars by 2025 (Husain et al. 1040). The United Kingdom, Norway, and France are the leading countries supporting the EV industries. For example, the UK has passed a law that mandates the government to stop manufacturers from selling new diesel, gasoline, or hybrid cars from 2035 (Andor 453). Such administration support increases sales and adoption of EVs today and in the future.
Breakthrough technologies such as Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) have been incredibly valuable among EV manufacturers. Through PLM, EV companies have come up with creative car designs that are excellent and of high safety standards. Creativity in the EV sector has led to the invention of smart cars. Einride, a Swedish company, has manufactured autonomous and remotely controlled cars through T-Log and T-Pod technologies. The adoption of technological breakthroughs among EV companies has opened the door for more future opportunities and enduring solutions to transportation problems.
Electric Vehicles and Going Green
The world community is very concerned about environmental sustainability. Greenhouse gases are the commonest destroyers of the ozone layer, leading to adverse climatic changes. Clean energy is promoted by a number of groups and governments, omitting fuels like diesel. The EVs are environmentally friendly since they do not release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere (Husein et al. 1052). Furthermore, consumer knowledge is seeing many buyers being attracted to companies that have adopted clean energy production and business processes. Therefore, the appeal of EVs among users is currently high due to their connection to sustainability. Electric manufacturers are increasingly building their consumer brand equity by innovating to preserve the environment. Since many people are inclined towards a sustainable environment for positive climatic changes, many opt to buy EVs, leading to the replacement of gasoline and diesel cars.
EV Challenges: Counterargument and Rebuttal
EVs are beneficial to humanity, but critics oppose the adoption of a pure EV transport system due to recharging issues and initial purchase price. Electric cars may not have long-range power and require more time to recharge than internal combustion engine (ICE) cars (Husain et al. 1045). The vehicles are charged at three levels, each taking a considerable duration. The standard 120-volt plug used for home appliances can recharge EV batteries, but it takes up to 40 hours of charging time (Zhang et al. 8-14). The 240-volts offer ‘level two’ plug provides the cars with 20 to 25 miles of electrical power per hour. The most advanced is the DC ‘level three’ chargers that charge the vehicles to 80% within 30 minutes (Arafat et al. 478). Running out of power on the road and limited charging stations are other arguments opponents present to defend the continued use of ICE cars.
These challenges have within reach solutions but some of them require government coordination. For charging time, drivers can use the level three charging to wait for as little as 30 minutes for the charging to complete. Running out of power is like drying the diesel tank, which requires the driver’s preparedness and vigilance rather than external intervention. However, being prepared would be in vain if no charging systems were nearby. Governments must intervene in building charging points (CPs), as there is a dilemma in the industry. Consumers are waiting for more stations to be built to buy EVs, while investors want more cars bought before they can build the CPs. Therefore, the charging problem is related more to policy than to lack of technology.
Critics argue that ICEs are more affordable since EVs have higher price tags compared to gasoline-powered vehicles. The advanced technology required to manufacture and recharge the EVs exacerbates the price. Although the initial prices of the cars are high, the charging and maintenance costs of electric cars are lower than those of petrol-powered vehicles. The average electric car costs between $30,000 and $40,000, which is more than ICE cars (Glandorf). However, the overall cost would make EVs cheaper than ICEs due to their lower maintenance costs. Furthermore, installing the charging component is very expensive and may go as high as $35 800 for the DC charger (Glandorf). Installing the CP at home is not necessary if there are enough points for everyone on the roads. Additionally, EVs reduce the climate change effects causing flooding, droughts, wildfires, and other extreme weather conditions the world is experiencing today (Ortar and Ryghaug 2). A little cost would be acceptable to begin reversing the damage done to the ozone layer. Besides, depletion of fuel reserves due to rising fuel demand is increasing gas prices.
Conclusion
Irrespective of the high initial investment and recharging problems associated with a fully electric transport system, EVs are the sector’s future due to lower maintenance costs and less damage to the environment. While ICE inventions have made mobility easier and faster by enabling people to travel for long distances within a short time, greenhouse gas emissions and maintenance costs are critical challenges. Fortunately, the invention of the electric motor is transforming the automobile industry since EVs use electricity instead of gasoline, emitting zero greenhouse gases. Various countries are adopting EVs, given their cheap maintenance costs and environmental friendliness. The government’s intervention through regulations and industry coordination will accelerate EV adoption.
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