The battery-powered electric vehicle (BEV, but mostly known simply as EV or electric vehicle) is the name given to those cars which are moved by magnetic electric motors and fed by electric current stored in accumulators that can be recharged from the public distribution network. They are also called simply as electric vehicle (EV); however, the strict meaning of EV includes any kind of vehicle using an electric engine, what also comprises fuel cell vehicles. Because of this reason, the EV acronym will only be used when every kind of electric vehicles are referred.

Those cars are considered as alternative fuel vehicles since they don't depend necessarily on petroleum to run, so if the BEV was globally adopted, this fact would be traducen in a decrease of the petroleum required for transport, which would be substituted by other fossil fuels (coal and natural gas), nuclear energy and renewable electric sources. Furthermore, they don't emit any pollutant in the end-use zone, therefore typical ICV (internal combustion vehicle) harmful releases from car transport would be eradicated from cities and traffic areas, although the electric plants which feed them do.