Sorry, Luddite friends — there’s little doubt at this point that the future of automobiles belongs to the electric motor, but for a lot of reasons you might not have heard before. Internal combustion engines (ICEs) were always a compromise to the economy of cheap and available hydrocarbons, designed to consume them in abundance to produce loads of power in a light, compact and comparatively cheap package. But times have changed since internal combustion took over at the turn of the last century. Gas isn’t as cheap and available as it once was, cars aren’t as light, cheap and compact as they used to be, and electric motor, battery and computer technology has advanced to the point that burning dead stuff for go-power has started making less and less sense.
Of course, there are still obstacles to overcome — we’ll get into those in a different article. But ever since the first hybrids started hitting the mass market a decade ago, electric motors have taken on more and more of the motive duty. It’s only a matter of time before they take over all of those duties. Some (including yours truly) will lament the passing of the days of snarling idles and cylinders screaming against redline explosion. But then again, we’re probably also the same group of people who’d have complained about the absence of "earthy-smelling" horse manure in New York circa 1920.
In this article, we’re going to talk about all the reasons why most of us will live to see electric drivetrains come to dominate the auto industry — going way beyond obvious stuff like better performance, cleaner air and fewer brown polar bears. You probably already know all of that as it is. It’s been written about a million times. But there’s a lot more to the story of why electrics will prevail, and very soon.
But, as a balm to my fellow Luddites: That might be the best thing to ever happen to ICE vehicles. After all, it’s not as though horses disappeared with the rise of ICEs...nor will horsepower disappear with their fall.
Continue Reading for the Seven Reasons
Seven Unexpected Reasons Why Electric Cars Are The Future originally appeared on topspeed.com on Friday, 27 March 2015 09:00 EST.
from Top Speed http://ift.tt/1MbDNK0
via IFTTT
0 comments:
Post a Comment