It's easy being green when you're an electric car

The increasing awareness of environmental issues coupled with soaring gas prices have caused many engineers and marketers to turn their attention back through the pages of history to when electric cars outnumbered gasoline-powered vehicles. It seems that, in one of those odd twists in human events, we have come full circle back to a large-scale movement towards the acceptance of the electric car as a practical solution to the many problems today that beset the motoring public. Problems that didn't exist circa 1900 to about the mid 60's when the adverse effect of auto emissions began to receive serious attention and the first glimmer of rising gas prices appeared on the distant economic horizon.

The following history is just an outline dealing only with well-documented events.

Consider the first electric car ever built, by Scotsman Robert Anderson in the period from 1835 to 1838. It was a crude affair powered by primary cells. As a definition these cells are much like the batteries in a flashlight, they have a one-time use only and cannot be recharged. As you can imagine, Anderson's invention didn't make the grade, it was not practical, but thinking patterns were established in a mindset that never really went away.

The first practical vehicle was actually a small locomotive built in 1835 by American inventor Thomas Davenport.

Now to the year 1859 which saw a milestone event in the development of the rechargeable battery by Gaston Plantè, a French physicist. This is basically what we use today, it's that real heavy black box under the hood, and everything runs off the electricity it supplies together with the alternator. Briefly it is made up of pairs of lead plates immersed in a liquid of sulfuric acid and can be discharged and recharged many times over.

Now let's fast forward to 1897 when a 17 year old named Earle Anthony built his electric car, little more than a box on bicycle wheels. He was a fine engineer able to design his own 1.5-horsepower motor as the prime mover. In that same year, electric taxis were a common sight in New York City.

The next ten years saw the heyday of the electric car with Thomas Edison becoming involved in developing a more efficient storage battery. He believed this was the wave of the future, but he did later abandon the project. Remember that gas-powered autos were very crude affairs at this time, they were noisy, dirty and required often difficult hand cranking to start. By contrast, electrics were quiet, with no cranking required and as they were being driven only in the city, the short 30-mile range wasn't considered a problem.

In the next few years two events occurred which dethroned the electric auto. Its banishment was to last for several decades before any real interest returned.

In 1908 Henry Ford rolled out the model T to become one of the most famous products of all time.

In addition, in 1912 Charles Kettering invented the electric starter which did away with one of the main objections to the gasoline-powered auto. Kettering was a prolific inventor, also improving the spark ignition system which resulted in greater reliability of the auto as we know it today.

Fast forward again to1966 when Congress is aware of the pollution factor, enacting legislation that encourages the use of electric vehicles. A contributing factor may have been the publishing of the best-seller, "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson in 1962. The results of a Gallup poll show that 33 million people were interested in this proposal by Congress. The environmental movement was quietly picking up momentum and this was all working in favor of the return of the electric auto.

The 70's and 80's became a time of backyard mechanics as well as major companies all expending efforts upon a hybrid vehicle as an intermediate step in the conversion from gas back to electric. I believe the hybrid has limited application because of its complexity together with the rapid improvement in battery technology which can lead us to a full time all-electric vehicle. The 90's gave us electric autos from major car companies, but again, their limited mileage range has been a negative factor in the minds of prospective buyers.

As of the year 2008, we can see the ultimate in technology upon which the Tesla car is based. This beauty can move from zero to sixty in less than 4 seconds with a top speed of 130 MPH and best feature of all has a 220-mile range. This car is appropriately named after one of the greatest yet least known inventors in all history, Nikola Tesla. In his experiments he applied the principle of alternating current which is used worldwide. Tesla did work for Edison for a while but eventually their basic differences in applying principles led to a parting of the ways. There are books about Tesla's life in the U.S.A. One title I recall is "Lightning in his Hands."

Now, I'm going to indulge in some technobabble with the hope that not too many of you will be bored. Please bear with me.

With regard to the Tesla car it's just possible that the battery which puts out a direct current goes through a chopper that converts it to A.C. That is applied to a resonant parallel tank circuit consisting of the inductance of the motor coupled to a capacitor of the correct value. There are other aspects such as varying phase shift angle etc., but for the most part the circuit could be made to resonate within a reasonable bandwidth allowing for a level of efficiency way beyond a pure D.C. application. This is a rather extreme simplification but there it is. And, it is just conjecture. I'm sure there's pretty tight security surrounding the actual design principles. Any comments are most welcome.

Finally, feast your eyes on this beauty, who knows, that spare $100,000 that kept you wondering what to do with it might just buy you a Tesla.

Hooray for greener driving.