The сar of the future

What kind of vehicle will eventually dominate? At present there is a lot of talks about electric cars, for they have the advantage of giving off no exhaust gases. The electric car has a long history. The first cars were built at the end of the 19th century, but they could not compete against the internal combustion engine.

They have several disadvantages. First, we have no re­ally suitable batteries - they are too heavy, take a long time to charge, have too small a capacity and a relatively short life.

For a while the fuel cеll looked very hopeful. This does not have to be charged, it generates its own energy from a chemical reaction. But this, too, proved too large and ex­pensive.

An electric car would have to run 200-250 km on, one charge to compete with the conventional car which can an about 200 km on a full tank.

So scientists and engineers are looking for better storage rage batteries or cells, and ways of using energy more economically.

There are about 120 different electric cars around the world. Some can run 100 km and longer on one charge. This is quite sufficient for town traffic, where cars do not cover such long distances. Electric vans can have their storage batteries recharged while being loaded or unloaded...

A Japanese automobile firm has announced successful development of three-wheel electric light van for pickup and delivery service and has started production of the car for full-scale marketing.

Recently, development work on electric cars has been accelerated in Japan as a principal means of eliminating environmental damage caused by automobiles through air pollution and noise. The electric car will be the first to be used on the streets.

This car will be employed mainly for delivery of newspapers, mail and milk, as well as for light loads in a limited area, such as factory premises.

It has a motor and four 12-volt improved lead batteries as the power source.

The vehicle, seating only the driver, has maximum speed of 40 kilometres per hour.

The batteries can be charged with home electricity.

With each charging, which takes eight hours, the electric van can run for 40 kilometres.

The price is about twice that of conventional gaso­line cars of a similar type.

But will the electric car ever become a universal means of transport? Hardly.

Today there are 200 million cars in the world. … It is estimated that if these changed over to electricity, they would require six million kilowatt hours, and all the power stations in the world now generate only a little over a third of that. This means that tremendous efforts will have to be made in future to increase the power output.

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