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Electricification of the auto industry

The electric car.  Many tout this as the future of the automobile, and maybe it is.  While electric vehicles have been made popular in the last 20 years or so, the electric automobile has existed for nearly 200 years already.

Due to a variety of issues related to electric cars in the mid 1800’s they did not gain popularity until the mid 1990’s with the release of the EV1. The GM EV1 was leased by General Motors from 1996-1999 and was the first mass produced electric car. The car only lasted for 3 model years until it was famously killed off by the company after receiving pressure from the oil industry, among others. The car’s demise was retold in the documentary Who killed the electric car.

While the EV1 may not have been long for this world, it laid the foundation for it’s successors, such as the Toyota Prius, Honda Insight and many others including the BMW 7 Series plug-in hybrid . And while the Prius isn’t a full electric vehicle, it, in my opinion, paved the way for people to accept electric cars and created a market for hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles.

The Toyota Prius was released in Japan in 1997 and has been produced ever since. While the Prius has received commercial success over the years it has also received its fair share of negative press over it’s questionable design. It is now onto its 4th generation and includes a variety of different models within the Prius lineup.

Over the past 10 years there have been many more automakers joining the electric car game, with more starting up every year. The most well known electric automaker is Tesla Motors, which is run by CEO Elon Musk. Tesla has been given much of the credit for bringing electric cars into the mainstream through their sleek design and obscene straight line performance. There are many videos on YouTube of Tesla Model S P100D sedans beating high horsepower, purpose built cars such as the Dodge Demon at the drag strip. Other electric carmakers haven’t been as successful. Companies such as Fiskar, Jaguar and even Dyson have tried to break into the EV market but either never got their vehicle onto the market or it failed to sell.

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Tesla isn’t the only one who is pushing the limits of what electric cars can be. Other manufacturers such as Rimac and Nio have become quite well known over the past few years for their high performance electric cars. Rimac is more well known than Nio by the public, though this is largely attributed to an accident that occurred during filming for a segment on The Grand Tour. Nio is quite well known in the electric racing series Formula E as it has a team that won the driver’s championship in both 2014 and 2015 and produces some electric road cars, though almost exclusively for the Chinese market.

Car manufacturing isn’t the only battle ground for electric vehicles. Formula E is becoming huge with most major auto manufacturers taking part over series such as WEC or Formula 1.  Case in point with Audi switching from WEC, a sport that they have been dominant in for many years, to Formula E.  Currently there are several major auto manufacturers involved in Formula E including Jaguar, Audi, Mercedes, Nissan, Porsche and BMW. There is also a support race for Formula E called Roborace, which is a race between autonomous electric cars.

The future of the electric automobile seems to be secured.  If the cars continue to look as good and perform as well as they do now we shouldn’t be fearful of this electric future.  Only time will tell if battery technology will improve to help quell range fears from naysayers. If the current rate of development in solid state batteries and other alternative energy storage technologies is any indication, then I remain optimistic.

To end this post, here are a couple of videos by Jason Fenske from the YouTube channel Engineering Explained offering his opinions on electric cars. Note – these videos have been sponsored by Formula E.

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