MVM 2019 - Volume 45 - Number 4
  1. WILL ELECTRIC MOTOR SUBSTITUTE INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE?
    Authors: DuĊĦan Gruden
    DOI: 10.24874/mvm.2019.45.04.03
    Abstract:

    The first transportation means driven by a DC electric motor was a six-passenger boat. Ground vehicles with electric drive have also a longer history than vehicles with IC engines. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were more cars driven by electric motors then those driven by IC engines. During the last 100 years, there have been many attempts to replace the IC engine with supposedly better power units. Experiments with electric vehicles were repeatedly performed. Around 1.1 million electric vehicles or about 0.12% of 947 million of passenger vehicles is used in the world traffic today. In terms of CO2 emissions, electric cars have an environmental advantage after 2 to 4 years of use, only if the electricity for their charging is created by regenerative sources: water, wind, solar energy, high and low tides or nuclear energy (as in France). In China and Germany, where the largest part of the electricity is produced in the coal or gas power plants, the CO2 emissions created by electric cars are significantly higher than those created by cars with IC engines are. It is the opinion of many experts, that vehicles with combined drive via an electric motor and a single, relatively small and optimized IC engine (so-called hybrid drive), present the best solution passenger cars in the future, especially in terms of reduction of toxic emission in the cities, as well as in reduction of fossil fuels consumption. The conclusion of this analysis of electric drives for motor vehicles, can only state the same as it repeats for over half a century: "The piston IC engines will be substituted by the better powertrains during the following 10 to 15 years and the existing oil reserves will be spent in the next 30 to 40 years!"

    Keywords: fuel cells, hybrid vehicles, electric vehicles, ecological fuels, IC engine