From UK Guest Blogger “Search” — Electric Cars Are The Future! Or Are They?

There are plenty of benefits offered by electric cars, alongside a number of challenges that they still face. Here are some of the main ones.

Tiny Running Costs

Once you’ve got the upfront cost of purchasing the car out of the way (and there is certainly a premium to pay for them at the moment) electric cars are far cheaper to run than their petrol-guzzling equivalents. The only caveat to this, is that depending on usage, the battery may eventually need replacing which will typically not be cheap.

You should also include the rising cost of fuel as part of any calculation. Whether we’ve passed peak oil (the point at which oil production reaches its highest) or not, it’s likely that prices at the pump will only increase for the foreseeable future.

Buyers need to also consider the fact that they will not have to pay any road tax or the London congestion charge and may benefit from free parking in some places.

Save The Planet (In More Ways Than One!)

We’ve all come to accept motorised traffic as normal, but if there were to be a widespread change to electric vehicles, it would have a dramatic effect on our cities and indeed our planet.

Firstly, electric cars don’t produce particulate emissions. Air pollution is linked as a contributory factor to thousands of deaths a year in the UK alone, with diesel engines being an especially egregious offender.

Electric vehicles are also much quieter than combustion engines, so traffic noise would be substantially reduced.

Although generating the electricity required to charge an electric car still emits some CO2, the amount created is significantly less than that produced by a conventional engine. If the change were to take place on a global scale, this would make a notable difference to combating climate change.

A world of electric cars would radically change our urban environment. No carcinogenic fumes to breathe for pedestrians and cyclists, cleaner historic buildings and much less noise.

However, like most things, there are a few disadvantages to the electric car too.

Charging – Not quite a Formula 1 Refuel

There’s no way around it, charging up an electric car is not as convenient as visiting a petrol station. Although there’s no hard and fast rule, most vehicles typically take 6 to 8 hours to fully charge, but can reach 80% of capacity or so in about 2 hours.

Nonetheless, anyone who has unpredictable long distance travel patterns should rightly ponder whether the current performance of electric cars is right for them.

Range – Don’t Plan Your American Road Trip Just Yet

Connected to the issue of charging is that of range. Most models of contemporary electric cars simply do not travel as far as standard engines on a single charge / fill up, which why hybrids have proved an attractive alternative. Whilst this won’t be a problem for most people and most journeys, long-distance motorway drivers may want to hold off on a purchase until this issue is convincingly resolved.

So Are They The Future?

There are so many technological avenues being explored in the car industry at the moment that it’s hard to know for sure which path we’ll follow in the future. Self-driving cars? Super efficient engines? Hydrogen?

One thing’s for certain, though. Electric cars are increasingly sophisticated, viable alternatives to their fossil fuel cousins, offering significant cost saving and environmental benefits. Watch this space.

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