4.2- BATTERY ELECTRIC VEHICLE

4.2.1- PERFORMANCE ASPECTS

The usual autonomies of the currently commercialized electric cars are of about 80 km in the most achievable models and 300 kilometers in certain cutting-edge models. Those ranges are notably inferior to the ones of the ICV counterpart.

Since this vehicle must be connected to the network to get recharged, it would be necessary to deploy several public plug-in points in order to support the travelers and the owners without garage. Additionally, an important drawback of the BEV is its long reloading time, which can take between 5 and 8 hours depending on the battery model and power supply, a fact that can be a problem since it could make impossible for a driver to perform a long trip in one day.

With reference to its efficiency, the battery-powered electric vehicle has the best in-vehicle and overall ratio, a comprehensible fact since its energy source, that is electricity from the network, is produced in thermal power plants (if not in renewable sources or others) with an efficiency of about 33-48%, and transported across the electric network, with an average energy loss of 7.3% in the EU, and used in BEVs with an effectiveness of about.

It is convenient to consider that the electric traction, by itself, is not an attractive option to power freight trucks or other heavy-duty apparels that require high performances at long autonomies, so electricity would be principally an affair of private vehicles, light-duty cars and urban buses.

4.2.2- ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECTS

The EV, as an electric device and unlike the ICV, doesn't work directly from the combustion of hydrocarbons, so it doesn't produce any pollutant tailpipe emission when it's used. However, the electricity in which it is fed is mainly obtained from fossil sources such as coal, petroleum and gas, which release similar dangerous compounds to the liquid fuel ones, so it is deductible that the resulting contamination from the use of EVs doesn't depend of its operation, but from the generation of the energy it uses, a fact that makes possible to move the harmful transit tailpipe emissions from residential areas to outer places (the electric plant), tackling pollution-caused illnesses and improving the human wellbeing.

Even the efforts lately made on boosting sustainable pollutant-free energy sources actually most of the electricity in the public network is generated in highly contaminant coal, gas or nuclear plants. Anyway, the net resulting pollution caused by an EV fed from the current network would be inferior to the produced by the average ICV, according to a European electric mix emission of 400 g/kWh of CO2 and a typical energy consumption of 0.177 kWh/km.

Following a comparative table about the pollutant releases of the average European ICVs and the indirect contamination of a regular EV is exposed:

According to this estimation, the emitted CO2 from the private vehicle system would be reduced the exposed data, if the electric vehicle was used as an ICV substitute, CO emissions from transport would be drastically diminished, as well as volatile organics and solid particles (which are the main cause of urban photochemical smog). Only SO2, which is produced by coal combustion and originates acid rain, would be increased.

For a more strict comparison between the fossil fuel fed ICV and the EV, it would be convenient to consider all the energy spent in extracting, transporting, refining and delivering the fuel in the first case; and the energetic costs of extracting and transporting the combustible used in electric plants, as well as the network loses, in the second case. Unfortunately, it was impossible to secure reliable information about this aspect.

The specific technical proprieties of the electric engine are an upside in its utilization in urban areas, since they have no idle consumption when the car is stopped, unlike the ICE, which wastes several amounts of energy in congested traffic. Furthermore, the use of high-capacity batteries can allow storing kinetic energy from braking in form of electricity, which can be used later to run the vehicle.

Anyway, the BEV offers the advantage of a great versatility in the theme of energy sources, since electricity can be obtained from any kind of fossil or renewable source (a fact that would make possible to use local energetic sources, reducing Europe's oil dependence).

4.2.3- ECONOMIC ASPECTS

Currently, the commercialized battery electric vehicles are notably more expensive than their ICV equivalents, principally because of its low-scale fabrication (a fact that might be solved in a few decades if automakers opted to invest in lessening production costs) and because of the batteries, which are the most problematic part of the car owing to their price and their short lifespan. The virtue of the electric propulsion versus the classic one is its inferior maintenance costs due to the lower wearing of mechanical parts and the nonexistence of a combustion engine.

An important shortcoming of a massive BEV implantation in the field of the private transport would be a significant increase of the electric consume that would suppose the necessity of boosting the power supply, a fact which could be virtually less relevant if cars were charged in off-peak periods (for example at night).

As a main advantage over the rest of studied alternative fuels and technologies, the BEV is reloaded from the electric network, what means that it doesn't require any additional energy infrastructure to work. Consequently, there is not any concern about fuel production and delivering to solve unlike biofuels or hydrogen. Nonetheless, it would be positive to deploy a public recharge network with the purpose of supply electricity to the BEV users without garage and foreign drivers.