One who has already been writing about environmental issues for more than a decade, may have a moment of deep doubt, something like that believer who has once felt that God has withdrawn so much from him that he even thinks that the Creator does not exist. He suffers a crisis of faith, but like any crisis, it passes and then he believes again.It happened to me specifically with the Paris Agreement, whose extensive body I read to myself, and at the end of it I experienced that moment of loss of faith. It seemed too theoretical, too extensive, too complicated to put it into practice and I considered the complex and delicate maneuver required to bring it to fruition as extremely risky. But my crisis was diluted as I saw that the practice was exceeding the letter of that heavy compendium and was getting closer and closer to its spirit. This is very important to take into account.
When an environmentalist or an activist of the Earth delves into the subject of the electric car, he lands in a world that leaves him pleasantly surprised, by everything that has been done and the plans that exist in this important field of in the fight against the climate change. Electromobility goes in the same direction as prescribed by the Paris Agreement, since it is based on the drastic reduction of the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) and the replacement by clean energy. The silent and decarbonized electric car is the hope of cities without smog and a world without noise and gases that increase global warming. So it is very gratifying to appreciate the determination that exists in the automotive industry to make the great transformation, as defined by a representative of General Motors: "There will be more changes in the automotive industry in the next five to ten years than in the last fifty."
An electric car is a vehicle powered by a motor that uses electrical energy stored in a rechargeable battery. It has a high performance in the transformation of electrical energy into mechanical energy, compared to the performance of gasoline-powered automobiles, and a power-to-weight ratio much higher than the traditional one. While these cars are still more expensive, BMW President Harald Krüger is optimistic that the learning curve will drive down costs in the future. His forecast points to 2020, a year that according to him these vehicles will be increasingly economical until they are equated with those of internal combustion.
Companies are clearly determined to replace gasoline-powered cars with electrically powered cars. Volkswagen (VW) plans to place 25% of electric vehicles by 2020 and 50% by 2030. By 2025 Volvo aims to produce 20% and Mercedes Benz between 20% and 25%. Also some countries have a strong determination to make the big leap to the electric car. Norway has indicated 2025 as the deadline for prohibiting the transit of internal combustion engines, France, 2040 and other countries such as India, Germany and Great Britain are studying the issue and will soon give their dates. The global cap year for the phase-out of GHG-emitting vehicles is 2050, in order to comply with the provisions of the Paris Agreement.
If it is possible to replace traditional cars with electric cars, an important battle for life on Earth will have been won. As more electric cars are incorporated into the planet's traffic, global warming will be mitigated, and consequently climate change, since GHG emissions are largely due to motor vehicle traffic. For all these reasons, the issue of the electric car should not be viewed as just another issue, but rather "the issue", for all that it represents and all the time that it will mark from now on and for the next 33 years.
Reviewing the history of electric mobility a little, we go back some 130 years to know that the first functional electric cars were created in the 1880s, and they became popular until the beginning of the 20th century, when internal combustion engines appeared., automatic starters, and series production began using the assembly lines introduced by Ford, which made cars significantly cheaper and electric cars out of the market. Many years passed, until the 1973 oil crisis revived interest in electric motors, due to concerns about rising oil prices and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The EV1 was the first modern electric car launched on the market. Assembled in the United States by General Motors, its production reached 1,117 units from 1996 until the program was canceled in 2002 and the vehicles were completely recalled by GM between 2003 and 2004. Most EV1s were destroyed and others donated to museums. The company considered its production unviable, claiming low autonomy, recharging time, price of batteries, lack of infrastructure, and little acceptance from the public.
The modern history of the electric car begins with the creation of Tesla Inc., and is closely related to the cancellation of GM's EV1 program, since the high-tech company AC Propulsion, was the one that designed and built the regulator for GM, which served as the basis for the development of the EV-1. At that time AC Propulsion had two teams working on an electric prototype called the T-Zero. In one were Martin Eberhard, Marc Tarpenning and Ian Wright, and in the other Elon Musk and JB Straubel. But as both groups were left in the air by GM's decision, Tom Gage, president of AC Propulsion, proposed that the teams join forces and continue their developments. This is how Elon Musk, JB Straubel and Martin Eberhard came together to found Tesla Motors, which takes its name from Nikola Tesla (1856-1943),outstanding inventor of his time.
It is important to note that AC Propulsion Inc, founded in 1992 in California by Alan Cocconi and Wally Rippel, “specializes in alternating current-based transmission systems for electric vehicles. Its purpose is the development, manufacture, and licensing of its technological systems and components for electric vehicles. Since its foundation, AC Propulsion has positioned itself as a world leader in this sector ”. Its founder and president, Alan Cocconi, graduated from the California Institute of Technology with an engineering degree. As an engineering consultant, he developed the solar capture and tracking systems for the GM SunRaycer which won the World Solar Challenge, 1987, Australia, created for solar powered vehicles.
Tesla Motors was created in 2003, based in Silicon Valley, the name given to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, northern California, United States. Tesla made it his mission to accelerate the transition to sustainable transportation, combat global warming and smog deaths caused by automotive transportation. Among its principles, the priority was to demonstrate that electric cars could be manufactured in small, high-performance series and to dismantle the myth that electric vehicles were slow, heavy, ugly and with little autonomy. And indeed, that was the perception of electric cars in those early years: slow toys that could never compete with internal combustion cars.
Tesla produces electric cars, batteries, and other components for its vehicles, but also supplies parts and technology for other brands, including Daimler and Toyota. The first car to go on sale from the Tesla plant was the Roadster, in 2008, an all-electric sports car, the first series-produced car to use lithium-ion batteries with a range of more than 200 miles (322 km) per load. The base model accelerates from 0 to 60 miles per hour (97 km / h) in 3.9 seconds. With these characteristics Tesla achieved its goal and caused a great impact on the public. The company had the merit of capturing people's attention for the first time to the electric car and making them believe in the possibility of its success. The Roadster prototype made Time magazine's cover of the year in 2006.Annual production was only 500 units. But the star of the manufacturer would be the Tesla Model S, which began its sales in 2012. It has the longest range on the market. Using a 100 kWh battery, it can roll without recharging up to 539 km or 335 miles. Between 2012 and July 2017, its sales reached nearly 185,000 units. In 2013 it was declared "Green Car" of the year.
Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi, through an unprecedented and bold operation, became strategic partners in 1999. The Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance controls ten major brands, including: Renault, Nissan, Mitsubishi and Lada. The Alliance sells more than 10% of all cars in the world. As of December 2016, it is the world leader in plug-in cars, with sales of nearly 425,000 pure electric vehicles, between 2010 and 2017. The Nissan Leaf is the world's best-selling electric car, with more than 300,000 units delivered as of September 2017. Nissan has already presented its 2018 model, the second generation of the Leaf.
Leaving history behind, the question that remains is how many electric cars circulate in the world? Giving an exact figure is not easy.The data we must keep is that, despite the production boom, the number of units is still around 1% of the total number of vehicles in the world. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), already two years ago, at the end of 2015, possibly the figure of one million cars between electric and hybrids was reached. The latter are powered by electric and gasoline engines at the same time. According to the IEA, 648,770 electric cars were already circulating on China's roads by 2016, which has become the owner of the largest number of vehicles of this type. By May 2016, Europe had half a million electric passenger cars. The IEA has determined that, in order to comply with the commitments acquired through the Paris Agreement in the fight against climate change,it is necessary to reach 600 million units by 2050.
If we take this astronomical figure into account, we conclude that it is no small thing to try to leave behind hundreds of millions of vehicles powered by fossil fuels, to replace them in a third of a century by cars powered by electricity. But the marathon has already started, and on the right foot, a sign that the future of the electric car is unstoppable, as well as the fight against global warming on our friendly planet Earth. This is how most manufacturers and many countries are demonstrating it. The production of units is on the rise, as is the desire to restrict the use of cars that emit greenhouse gases (GHG). We can check it using the following table.
COUNTRIES WITH THE MOST NUMBER OF CARS IN CIRCULATION
| POSITION | COUNTRY | PARK
ELECTROMOTOR |
| one | CHINA | 645,700 |
| two | U.S | 570,187 |
| 3 | JAPAN | 147,000 |
| 4 | NORWAY | 135,276 |
| 5 | HOLLAND | 113,636 |
| 6 | FRANCE | 108,065 |
| 7 | UK | 96,627 |
| 8 | GERMANY | 74,754 |
| 9 | SWEDEN | 30,513 |
| 10 | CANADA | 27,392 |
Table by: Sandor Alejandro Gerendas-Kiss
Does not include hybrid cars
Regarding the cost of maintaining an electric car, it is considerably lower than that of an internal combustion car, starting with the price of electric power, cheaper than gasoline. With no gearbox, clutch, spark plugs, injectors, fuel filters, exhaust pipes, mufflers and many other moving and fixed parts and pieces, there are fewer repairs to do. The obstacles that could threaten its low cost is that the rapid growth of the electric vehicle fleet could affect the price of batteries due to the high demand for lithium and cobalt. About the current price of an electric car, the following table can be seen:
PRICES OF SOME ELECTRIC CARS
| BRAND | MODEL | PRICE IN EUROS |
| TESLA | S | 83,000 |
| FORD | FOCUS ELECTRIC | 39,000 |
| BMW | i3 | 38,200 |
| Vw | E GOLF | 38,020 |
| NISSAN | LEAF | 31,805 |
| KIA | SOULE E | 25,328 |
| HYUNDAI | ELECTRIC IONIQ | 19,800 |
| RENAULT | ZOE | 18,500 |
| CITROËN | C-ZERO | 16,570 |
| RENAULT | TWIZY | 4,900 |
Table by: Sandor Alejandro Gerendas-Kiss
Does not include hybrid cars
What are the best-selling cars in the world? As we saw, the first place is occupied by the Nissan Leaf, followed by the Tesla S. In Europe the number one in sales is the Renault Zoe, 100% electric, closely followed by the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV and the Nissan Leaf.
Regarding the autonomy of an electric vehicle, a primary factor to take into account when deciding to migrate to the new system, it depends on the car model and the characteristics of the battery. With lithium batteries it is possible to reach a range close to 200 km. With some technologies that have begun to be applied, the distance between recharges can reach 300 km and up to 500 km. Batteries with more than 400 km of autonomy are expensive and the recharging time can reach around nine hours at home, which can be reduced to two hours at public recharging points or “electrineras”. To avoid waiting time, in some places discharged batteries are exchanged for pre-charged ones. In relation to charging points, the German company BMW claims to offer 70,000 stations in 29 countries. On the other hand,They are planning to create a European network for fast charging on motorways. But there is still a lot to do and invest in this area to be able to meet the high demand that is forecast for the coming years. Moreover, the Chinese government announced that it will build charging points for five million electric cars by 2020.
At this point, the question that remains is: could environmental problems increase with the increase in electricity generation?To begin with, we must remember that the production of electricity with traditional methods is being replaced by wind energy, a source of clean energy, and one of the most popular in the world, along with solar energy. The next question that arises is whether there will be enough capacity and space to accommodate the number of windmills and electric cells that will be required to power the batteries of the 600 million electric vehicles estimated by 2050, if the class of vehicles can be predicted. or transportation systems that we will be using in 33 years. If wind or solar energy will not be enough, perhaps it will be necessary to continue to resort, at least in part, to hydroelectric energy.
The environmental problems inherent to the generation of hydroelectric energy are important and cover several aspects: in the construction of new dams, huge areas of land are flooded and with it complex ecosystems are annihilated, also affecting the flora and fauna of extensive surrounding regions. flooded, due to the invasion of fauna that manages to escape the flood. As for rivers, water flow conditions are altered and fish migration routes are blocked, preventing spawning. To lay the long electricity transmission lines it is necessary to cut down trees and deforest long stretches of forests, jungles and other lands. This, in addition to damaging the vegetation, affects the migration routes of the fauna,it causes soil erosion and facilitates human access to previously isolated sites. Finally, in certain cases, the electricity used to recharge the batteries is obtained from polluting raw materials such as coal.
What will happen to the people who cannot change their combustion car for an electric one?
Time will tell if countries will include subsidies to low-income individuals for the exchange of traditional vehicles for electric. There is currently an excellent example to take into account, such as Norway, the most advanced country on the planet to adopt the conventions included in the Paris Agreement. The Nordic country is changing its vehicle fleet very quickly. The secret is that the Norwegian government offers subsidies for the purchase of electric cars, as well as tax incentives such as exempting taxes on the sale of cars, which is not cheap in Europe. These cars do not pay tolls and can park for free, as well as travel free of charge on the ferries that cross the fjords. On the other hand, the French Minister of the Environment,Nicolás Hulot announced that there will be help for low-income people who decide to get rid of their current vehicle and buy an electric one, a kind of help for the transition to clean energy. Hulot is founder and president of the "Nicolas Hulot Foundation for Nature and Man", an environmental entity created in 1990.
But we must also consider that the electric car, to the extent that car production accelerates, will open a gigantic market and a new business opportunity, which will be joined by more brands and models that will fight to the death to capture to the buyer through aggressive marketing and sales strategies. We will surely see initial installments close to zero, low interest rates and increasingly long terms to pay, which will make access to electric mobility easier.
What will happen to countries that do not have the capacity to generate enough electricity?
The Green Climate Fund, an entity included in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, created at the end of 2011 to help developing countries in their adaptation and mitigation needs, such as the generation of clean electricity, will have $ 100 billion a year for such purposes, although how to collect these resources is still under discussion.
A final acknowledgment to
(Pretoria, South Africa, June 28, 1971), South African inventor and entrepreneur, in addition to being the co-founder of Tesla Motors, he is also the co-founder of PayPal, SpaceX, Hyperloop, SolarCity, The Boring Company and OpenAI. Musk says the purposes of SolarCity, Tesla and SpaceX revolve around his vision to change the world in dramatic ways. Among its goals is to stop global warming by abandoning fossil fuels for renewable energy, especially solar energy.
Elon Musk, perhaps in the future we could see him inscribed in the same album where are the photos of Bill Gate, Steve Jobb, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Mark Szuckemberg, Jeff Bessos, Jimbo Wales and Larry Sanger, and why not, the Walt Disney, pioneer of the visionary pioneers of the twentieth century who managed to install their exclusive commercial premises on the main street of this global village called Earth. Like them, Musk has had to navigate a murky sea with intermittent periods of good weather, but that has finally allowed them to sail forward and bequeath their contributions of ingenuity to create a new world that has completely transformed the life of humanity., as no one could imagine just half a century ago, and whose outcome is still unpredictable, and we hope that Steven Hawkings this time is wrong in his predictions.
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