Electric vehicles
Climate change is our major issue, and it is due to the emission of greenhouse gases, most especially carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is a by-product of all types of combustion reactions. Since energy and electricity are both vital to humans and the production of both sources come from burning fossil fuels, it follows that every year tens of billions of tons of carbon dioxide are released into our atmosphere. It is expected that this number will continue to grow rapidly in the coming years, and the harmful effects as a consequence of the emissions will also become more devastating: the pH in oceans will increase, the temperature gradient will rise, ice caps will melt at a faster rate, and disastrous weather patterns will increase in frequency. 2
1.2 Emergence
From governmental warnings and social promotion of the impacts due to emissions, a greater proportion of the world population has begun to acknowledge the urgency of the problem and our responsibility to resolve it. Many solutions have been considered, most revolving around the central idea of renewable energy. When we start to move away from burning fossil fuels and rely on more environmentally friendly ways of producing energy, emissions will decrease by a great margin. However, the proposition of such ideas is straightforward, but the implementation is much more challenging. In this essay, I will cover one of the more significant paths that scientists have taken to promote sustainability: electric vehicles . 3
Timeline 2.1 How it all began - late 19 th century and early 20th century
In the 19 th century, the second industrial revolution took place. The scientific world saw breakthroughs in manufacturing and electrical innovations, for instance, Gaston Plante’s rechargeable lead -acid battery. These events could be seen as the basis on which American pioneer William Morrison built the first practical models of electric vehicles. Although initially electric vehicles had received great praise for their quick start-up time and quietness, the early 1900s saw a surge in petrol cars due to Henry Ford’s as sembly line which made mass production of such vehicles possible, leading to a reduction in cost. In addition, the discovery of huge oil reserves and the invention of an electric starter motor, which eased the cranking process, had also contributed to the rise of such cars. 4
2.2 Resurgence – late 20 th century
Due to concerns with air pollution caused by internal combustion engines (ICE) from petrol cars and drastic elevation in oil prices around the 1960s, EVs slowly made their way back into the market. Then in 1976, three scientists, who were later awarded the Nobel prize, invented the first ever rechargeable lithium- ion batteries which took its ancestor’s (nickel cadmium battery) voltage output of 1.3V and increased it to 2.4V. Furthermore, with Tesla's first model, the Roadster, and Toyota’s Prius hybrid, the manufacturing of EVs increased sharply. 5
2 NOAA 2021. 3 Turrentine 2022. 4 Box 2023. 5 Murray 2023.
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