The Electric Car- Amandeep

Most of my blog entries are about social and physical mobility, so I’ve decided to look at political and environmental issues that I think are important to us in terms of physical, social, and virtual mobility, and found that the electric car was a good example of where society saw/sees the future.

The idea came about in 1996, around the time we became aware of climate change and its effect on our atmosphere. It was an experiment done by GM to produce a car of the future that would use a renewable fuel.

The design brought about many advantages such as no noise, lightweight, no toxic emission, cost less than using petrol, can be built at large scale cheaply and many more. It draws motive power from a batter that provides 4 kilowatts per hour and can even be charged from home overnight. But after a 4 year trial it was eventually scrapped due to political and economical matter.

Wally Rippel (car developer) explains the idea of the electric car was abandoned as this would result in oil companies losing profit in the oil sales and auto companies were afraid of losses over the next six months of EV production. GM began negative marketing and eventually discontinued their range. Though the idea has not been publicly released, the concept is still wandering in the air.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsJAlrYjGz8

But fortunately, many other companies have been designing hybrid electric cars over the last decade, that may even be released within the next 10-20 years. Maybe the future does hold a better, faster and more efficient environment through the use of new technology?

Another example is the electric scooter which is available now that allows travel for individuals and can even reach speeds of up to 50 mph! They can mainly be seen used by the police force nowadays all over the world, but will they eventually be owned by every household?? Will travel be even faster?