Drive an Electric Vehicle and Never Buy Gas Again
(Page 3 of 9)
April/May 2006
By Bill Moore
As a result of the street-legal designation, an increasing number of manufacturers are producing NEVs in North America. Six leading companies are listed in Electric Vehicle Resources. Furthermore, the U.S. Department of Energy keeps a list of the most current models of each manufacturer at its Clean Cities Web site. Here’s another directory of smaller NEV manufacturers.
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All NEVs share a number of features besides those prescribed by federal regulations. They typically use either 48- or 72-volt systems powered by common lead-acid batteries like those found in electric golf carts. They can be recharged in six to eight hours by plugging into standard 120-volt household outlets. For faster recharging, 240-volt systems are available — they reduce recharge time to only three or four hours. Drive it, park it and plug it in — no messy oil changes, no trips to the gas station and fewer repair bills.
The popularity of NEVs grew out of two trends in the 1990s. Retirees in the Sun Belt states wanted something better than golf carts for running short trips and errands around their planned communities. The second trend was the realization that an affordable electric car with true highway performance was still out of reach, largely because of the high cost of batteries. While automakers built nearly 5,000 freeway-capable electric cars to meet California’s short-lived Zero Emission Vehicle mandate, none chose to go into full-scale production. Today only about 1,000 of these cars remain on the road, mostly in California.
If you just need a vehicle that can zip around your neighborhood, then current electric car technology is easily up to the challenge, especially if you drive less than 30 miles a day. NEVs’ relatively inexpensive lead-acid batteries can be recharged overnight, and the estimated annual cost to drive an NEV 100 miles a week (at 8 cents per kilowatt-hour) is about $58. Doing the same in a 27 mpg car costs nearly $450 at $2.33 per gallon of gasoline — an NEV would save you about $390.
The savings realized from operating an NEV for local trips also go beyond the price of gasoline. The average gasoline engine generates the most pollution and undergoes the greatest engine wear in the first few miles of operation. A three-mile round trip to the grocery store for bread doesn’t give the catalytic converter enough time to warm up, and doesn’t allow engine lubricants to fully coat all the moving parts. In contrast, short trips are a piece a cake for the NEV.
Like any piece of machinery, NEVs have their issues. Every three to five years, their batteries must be replaced at a cost of about $1,000. Treat the batteries with respect — meaning you charge them regularly and don’t let their charges run too low — and they will perform better and work for the longer end of that range.
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