Why Electric Cars are Better Than Gas-Powered Ones
There’s a nasty rumor going around that electric vehicles aren’t as good as gas-powered vehicles; and, admittedly, I fell victim to it too. However, on an episode of the popular show Mythbusters, they put this rumor to the test. The guys on Mythbusters decided to put gas and electric models of compact cars, ATVs, motorcycles and go-karts to the test to see which electric model could last the longest.
The Car Test
Among several tests that were conducted, the first one consisted of “home-built” vehicles. The test consisted of taking two average compact cars-one with a gas engine and one with an an electric engine (built with lead-acid batteries in someone’s garage)- which were driven on a country road. The gas powered car worked fine. However, the electric powered car didn’t have quite enough power to go uphill.
The second test consisted of comparing gas powered ATVs against electric ones. Both vehicles performed well, with the electric one winning the race by a small amount. However, the researchers discovered that ATVs emit a lot of pollutants. In fact, they found that for every hour that a gas ATV is running, it’s putting out as many pollutants as four modern cars because the engines don’t have the same pollution restrictions. In the meantime, an electric ATV can be charged at a fraction of the pollution and cost associated with gas ATVs, and would be much quieter.
The real car test (meaning normal, store-bought cars) was conducted later on where the team brought in an electric car named the X1 (made by Ian Wright). It was a two-seated car that went from 0 to 60 in 3.07 seconds. This vehicle gets an average of 100 miles of highway driving and uses lithium polymer batteries. The downside, however, is that the vehicle will cost you around $200,000 (when it comes out) and a battery change will cost you an additional $40,000.
In Conclusion
The team at Mythbusters concluded that you should switch to electric if you can. This is especially true if you use your vehicle mostly for commuting to work and back or for running small errands, which most of us already do. Gas vehicles are extremely polluting, and when you have an electric vehicle, you are utilizing a fraction of the fuel cost because the vehicle runs on a power grid. Additionally, electric vehicles are quieter too. What do you think about electric vehicles? Do you think that they’re a good idea?
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