With the development of society and the advancement of science and technology, electric vehicles are becoming more and more popular, and there is a trend of catching up with gasoline and diesel vehicles. As a new energy vehicle, electric vehicles are divided into pure electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles according to the proportion of energy.
Electric vehicles have been around for more than 170 years, even earlier than gasoline and diesel vehicles. What is less known is that its development path is long and tortuous, and the story is quite flavorful.
Sixty years of innovation and development
One day in 1839, a Scottish merchant named Robert Anderson installed an electric motor and batteries on a tricycle to facilitate the transportation of goods from his home to the store, and transformed it into the world's first electrically driven vehicle.
The car can only travel about one kilometer at a time, and was soon abandoned due to the lack of battery durability. Later, Robert donated it to the museum, which was preserved intact and became the prototype of the electric car.
In 1839, The prototype of the electric car invented by Anderson, picture source: Energy Network
More than 20 years later, with the advent of lead-acid batteries, Austrian scientist Franz Clavogel demonstrated a two-wheeled electric car at the Paris World's Fair. Although this car is electrically driven, it has always been considered an upgraded version of the prototype of an electric vehicle because it is only for exhibitions, is not on the road, and has not been mass-produced.
The first internationally recognized electric car was born in 1881. A French engineer named Gustav Truff converted a human-powered tricycle into an electric vehicle powered by lead-acid batteries in order to test the effects of lead-acid batteries.
At the Paris International Electricity Exposition held at the end of 1881, Truff put the car on display and said that it would be mass-produced within 3 years.
In 1884, the Englishman Thomas Parker designed a larger and rechargeable battery. Truff worked with him to build electric vehicles with this new battery that could be mass-produced.
Parker and Truff invented the electric car, image source: First Electric Net
History has given electric vehicles new opportunities. European countries, mainly In France, Britain and Germany, they have begun to pay attention to energy and environmental protection issues, and scientists have carried out research and development and improvement of electric vehicles and batteries.
Four years later, an engineer named André developed Germany's first electric car, which attracted the attention of various countries. Not to be outdone, the American William Morrison developed the country's first electric car in 1891.
The six-seater bus can reach speeds of up to 23 kilometers per hour, which is equivalent to today's electric vehicles (not electric vehicles). After several modifications, the new electric car was launched in 1894.
At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, electric vehicles swept through Europe and the United States, and quickly competed with steam cars and gasoline cars in the automobile market.
The three kinds of cars have their own advantages and disadvantages: steam cars can travel far, but they must reserve sufficient amounts of supplementary water, and it takes half an hour to heat up the machine each time; gasoline cars are moderately priced, but the internal combustion engine needs to be started by hand, and the exhaust gas generated during driving is unpleasant and the noise is very large; the electric vehicle starts quickly, and there is no exhaust gas and noise during driving, but the battery life is poor and the driving distance is short.
Battery problems have always been a key factor in the development of electric vehicles, and scientists, including Edison, are working on batteries that store more electricity. Car batteries are inefficient and expensive, and electric vehicles once became a luxury.
How long will this continue?
Ninety years of ups and downs
The situation in which expensive electric vehicles have dominated the automotive market has only lasted for more than a decade. There has been no progress in battery research and development, but the development of gasoline cars has advanced by leaps and bounds.
In the 1920s, the acceleration of oil extraction led to a gradual reduction in gasoline prices. At the same time, the internal combustion engine of gasoline vehicles was successfully modified, and the electronic start replaced the hand crank; the birth of the silencer made the noise hidden; at the same time, the exhaust gas emissions were effectively controlled.
The above reasons help gasoline cars occupy the main automotive market, and electric vehicles have gone from one of the three to almost extinct, and then gradually withdraw from the historical stage.
This exit is 40 years!
In the early 1960s, Europe entered the middle of the industrial age, and oil crises occurred in various countries, and electric vehicles once again attracted people's attention.
In early 1960, the American Automobile Company and another company jointly developed a rechargeable electric vehicle. The advent of such cars has promoted the development of electric vehicles, pure electric vehicles have quickly entered the market, and small electric vehicles are widely used in golf courses and so on.
Golf electric speed of up to 48 km/h, image source: Energy Circle
On July 31, 1971, the American Apollo 15 deployed an electric car on the moon. Each wheel of this car is equipped with a DC electric motor and a pair of silver zinc potassium hydroxide batteries. Countries are competing to report that some media have said that "electric vehicles will be the main means of transportation in the future".
Electric car parked on the moon, image source: First electric net
Unfortunately, the good times did not last long. Rechargeable electric vehicles are not suitable for long-distance driving, and it is even more difficult to walk in areas without charging stations. With the lifting of the oil crisis, gasoline cars quickly became popular and dominated the auto market for nearly 20 years. During this period, the number of electric vehicles accounted for less than 10% of the market.
From 1900 to 1990, in the 90 years before and after, the development of electric vehicles has ups and downs, long and tortuous.
Twenty years in full use
Since the 1990s, human understanding of global warming caused by exhaust gases caused by gasoline and diesel vehicles and limited petroleum resources has gradually deepened, and the research and development of electric vehicles has once again attracted the attention of countries around the world.
Since then, great progress has been made in battery research and development, and the endurance level of electric vehicles has also increased to 50-80 kilometers per hour, which basically meets people's travel needs.
At the end of 1995, the first innovative version of the electric vehicle in Europe was introduced. In the following five years, the number of electric vehicles in Europe has more than doubled to 16,255, and the top three in terms of ownership are France, Switzerland and Germany (according to the European Association of Urban Electric Vehicles).
At the beginning of the 21st century, Tesla Motors in the United States used lithium-ion batteries produced by Panasonic to develop a unique Terrasse car. The first fully automatic pure electric Terrasse was born in 2008 and can travel 320 kilometers at full power.
For more than 10 years, Terrass has sold thousands of electric vehicles. The advent of Tesla electric vehicles marks the beginning of a new era for electric vehicles. Since then, electric vehicles have developed rapidly.
As of September 2015, the total sales of rechargeable electric buses, electric trucks and electric vehicles in the world reached 1 million, and pure electric vehicles accounted for about 62% of total sales.
Although electric vehicles currently only account for a part of the automotive market, its high popularity in the future will be an unstoppable trend. At the same time, based on the great advantages of electric vehicles in terms of cost and performance, coupled with the attention of governments around the world to climate change and environmental protection, in the near future, electric vehicles are expected to surpass or even replace gasoline vehicles.
The world's major countries have sold electric vehicles over the years, picture source: see watermark
The mainland's new energy automobile industry, which is dominated by electric vehicles, has just experienced more than 20 years. In 2001, the new energy vehicle research project was included in the national "Tenth Five-Year" development plan, and the specific steps were "taking gasoline vehicles as the starting point and advancing towards hydrogen-powered vehicles".
The mainland has stepped up the promotion of electric vehicle technology development and product landing, and has now become the country with the highest number of electric vehicles in the world and the second largest market for electric vehicles in the world.
Resources:
1. Luo Wenyun, Zhou Hao, Yu Letao, et al., "Development Status and Optimization Suggestions of Electric Vehicles at Home and Abroad", China Collective Economy, No. 2, 2018
2. Fan Yuhong, Zhang Wei, Chen Yang, "Analysis of the Development of Electric Vehicles Abroad and Its Enlightenment to the Mainland", Central China Electric Power, No. 23, 2010
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Tadpole stave original article, reprinted indicating the source
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