User:Stan.skywalker23/sandbox

The Carbon Footprint & Environmental Impact Of Hybrid & Electric Vehicles

Overview

It is believe that electric cars are taking over the market right now, and many people also believe that they are having a much better impact on the environment, but what they do not know, is that the environmental impact may be worse than diesel or petrol vehicles.

Battery Types:

Lithium-Ion Batteries

As the name suggests, this system is made primarily out of lithium and is found commonly in full electric vehicles such as the Jaguar I Pace. [1] [2] The main advantages of using Lithium in electric motors is that it is lighter and you can cram a larger quantity of electrical power into a smaller battery. What this means in physics terms, is that you will be able to travel a greater distance than a hybrid which is running only on it's electric motor, and the other and you will also be able to fit a physically smaller battery with a greater capacity, making it lighter and faster.

Lead-Acid Batteries

The lead-acid battery is the traditional auto battery that we can find in petrol / diesel vehicles such as the Volkswagen Golf [3] and it can also be found in plug in / self charging hybrid (electric + petrol) vehicles such as the Toyota C-HR. [4] Out of all of the battery options available on the market, the lead acid battery tends to be heavier and less efficient. What This does is make the car heavier and less efficient. and it also makes the buyer reliant on the engine if they want any performance out of their chosen vehicle.

Car Types;

Full Electric

With a full electric car, the battery power is sent directly (depending on your chosen drivetrain) to a / some electric motors, which in turn, turns the wheels. However these tend to be very inefficient and depending on which car it is, it is going to spend a lot of time in charging stations which at the moment, are very thin on the ground.

Plug In Hybrid;

The hybrid works almost exactly the same as a full electric vehicle however, the electric motor is now working in a direct partnership with the electric motor in order to increase the efficiency. however, like electric vehicles, the owner will be spending a lot of their time and money at charging stations and petrol stations.

Self Charging Hybrid;

The self charging hybrid works in the exact same way as a plug in hybrid except it negates the need for charging station as the battery tends to restore its power through the kinetic energy that is generated through braking in a system which is known as the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (K.E.R.S) the most common of which can be found in the cars built for the Formula One championship. [5]

Sports / Super / Hypercars:

Using any of the common systems available, sports car manufacturers such as McLaren, [6] Ferrari [7] and Porsche, [8] are using the environmentally friendly technology and are engineering it in order to create speed and horsepower. These manufacturers are able to do this because they are borrowing technology from their motorsport divisions, McLaren and Ferrari being Formula One teams and Porsche being a team competing in the 24 Hours of Le Mans [9] .Ferrari's latest creation is the SF90 Stradale

The Environmental Impact;

Many people believe that by driving a hybrid / electrical vehicle, we are having less of an impact on the environment however, if it is mapped out correctly, it might not be so true. For the Jaguar I Pace, lithium is mainly found and Australia before it is sent off to a processing plant in the centre of South America. after that it tends to travel to China in order to be refined, next it is off to the USA where the batteries are built, then it is off to the UK where the rest of the car is put together before the whole car is shipped off to dealerships across the globe. where the total distance travelled averages out at around 39,867 miles. the most common cargo plane is the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III [10] which would use a total of 169,959.3 gallons of aviation fuel costing an average of $343,317.78 with an MPG (Miles Per Gallon) of 0.23.