Electric Cars
- powered by an electric motor instead of a gasoline engine (www.hybridcars.com/electric-car, 2011)
- The electric motor acts as a generator (www.hybridcars.com/electric-car, 2011)
- Battery technology is improving so you can drive longer and it's cheaper and faster to recharge (www.hybridcars.com/electric-car, 2011)
- No oil changes or trips to the gas station (www.hybridcars.com/electric-car, 2011)
- No emission checks (www.hybridcars.com/electric-car, 2011)
- 330 kilowatt hours of energy is used in a ten gallon tank of gas. It takes 9 days to put that amount of energy into an electric car but only 8 hours of recharging will propel it the same distance. (www.hybridcars.com/electric-car, 2011)
- Fast and silent 0-60 acceleration times (www.hybridcars.com/electric-car, 2011)
- China has a BYD E6 all-electric crossover (www.hybridcars.com/electric-car, 2011)
-five passenger car
-0-60 time of less than ten seconds
-top speed: 100mph
-fully charged in ten hours by plugging into a standard household outlet
-ten minutes to charge 50%
-15 minutes to charge 80%
BYD E6 (www.hybridcars.com/electric-car, 2011)
Hybrid Cars
(http://auto.howstuffworks.com/hybrid-car2.htm, 2011)
- Any vehicle that combines two or more sources of power that can directly or indirectly power a car is a hybrid (http://auto.howstuffworks.com/hybrid-car2.htm, 2011)
- gives you 20 or 30 more miles per gallon than the standard automobile (http://auto.howstuffworks.com/hybrid-car2.htm, 2011)
- has benefits of gas cars like easy refueling and a large range and benefits of electric cars like little pollution (http://auto.howstuffworks.com/hybrid-car2.htm, 2011)
- the gasoline engine is smaller than normal gas powered cars and more efficient (http://auto.howstuffworks.com/hybrid-car2.htm, 2011)
- uses advanced technologies to reduce emissions (http://auto.howstuffworks.com/hybrid-car2.htm, 2011)
- The electric motor can draw energy when accelerating but can act as a generator when brakes are applied (http://auto.howstuffworks.com/hybrid-car2.htm, 2011)
Gas Cars
(http://frugallygreen.org/2009/07/, 2011)
Cities have become
islands of toxic chemicals from the unrestrained use of vehicles burning fossil
fuels. On TV you see gas guzzlers in a car chase and on commercials you see these cars in the woods, but in real life these cars are stuck in traffic giving off harmful toxins. US emissions increased to 7 billion tones of CO2
in 2004, 16% higher than emissions in the late 90's. Today's popular cars are not efficient and we need to make a change (http://www.nutramed.com/environment/cars.htm, 2011).
(http://www.gpb.org/news/2010/01/07/epa-wants-tougher-smog-limit, 2011)
(http://www.therentables.com/blog/category/renter-news, 2011)
Government can encourage using cars less by:
- Increase Public Transit (Alters, Energy Supplies, Sustainability pg 19-119, 2007).
- Separate commercial and private traffic to increase efficient use of roads (Alters, Energy Supplies, Sustainability pg 19-119, 2007).
- Encourage people to buy more fuel efficient cars (Alters, Energy Supplies, Sustainability pg 19-119, 2007).
- In cities, build more walking paths, bicycle routes and roads for small electric vehicles (Alters, Energy Supplies, Sustainability pg 19-119, 2007).
- tax people who drive on the interstate with cars with bad mileage (Alters, Energy Supplies, Sustainability pg 19-119, 2007).
- Reward car-pools and car-sharing plans (Alters, Energy Supplies, Sustainability pg 19-119, 2007).
- Road Tolls and increased gasoline and vehicle registration taxes (Alters, Energy Supplies, Sustainability pg 19-119, 2007).
- Base car license fees on fuel consumption in the previous year (Alters, Energy Supplies, Sustainability pg 19-119, 2007).
- tax high fuel consumption individuals (Alters, Energy Supplies, Sustainability pg 19-119, 2007).
- Provide generous development grants and tax incentives for all non-polluting transportation alternatives
