Essay: Electric cars history and future

The Middle East countries holds 50% of the conventional oil resources of the world and most of the major countries buy their oil from these Middle East countries. But in June 5, 1967, a war called “The Six-Day War” started between Israel and the United Arab Republic and on the second day of this war, the Arab countries decided on an oil embargo (ban on trade) known as the 1967 Oil Embargo which limited all their oil shipments or just to UK and US and this embargo went on for 3 months. Later on, the Arab Countries had started another oil crisis in October 1973, which ended 5 months after, but this was the most significant one. During this period the oil prices in the US had risen from $3 to 12$ per barrel. When the public was annoyed by the oil prices, the interest towards the EVs was sprouted once more. This resulted with the US Department of Energy funding research on electric cars to find a more cost-effective way of transportation. In 1974, Vanguard-Sebring’s CitiCar debut in Washington, at Electric Vehicle Symposium and not long after became the 6th largest auto manufacturer of the US. Up to the year 1979, 4444 units of CitiCars were produced by Vanguard-Sebring, making them the largest EV manufacturer until 2010s, when Tesla Motors stole the title. The infamous CitiCar had range of approximately 64 km and a max speed of 45 km/h or 61 km/h depending on the model.
In 1988 Roger Smith, the CEO of G.M. (General Motors) agreed to fund the research for a practical consumer car and after teaming up with AeroVironment they came up with the design of EV1 and began production in 1996. This was the first mass-produced electric vehicle after CitiCar with 1117 units. Even though the public reaction towards the EV1 was positive, they decided on discontinuing the production in 2002 on the grounds that electric vehicle production was not profitable enough. Although EV1 was not considered as a success, it consisted remarkable amounts of new technologies that will later on be used in other GM models or adopted by other car manufacturers. The first generation of EV1’s had a range between 110 to 160 kilometers and its top speed was electronically limited to 129 km/h. In later generations, car ranges increased to 130 to 160 kilometers. In 1994, the company built 50 hand-built Impact electric cars as the PreView program. A modified version of Impact set a speed record of 295 km/h but they were not pleased with the results and decided on scrapping the program.
Modern History:
At the end of 20th century major car manufacturers stepped into the environment friendly car production scene. Japanese automotive manufacturer Toyota Motor Corporation debut the world’s first commercially mass-produced hybrid car in year 1995 and joined the market in 1997 with a sale of 18,000 units in its first year. Currently it is still being manufactured and being sold in 90 different markets. As April 2016 Toyota Prius has sold over 3.73 million units and its holds the record for most selling hybrid car. In a nutshell hybrid cars are types of vehicle that consist 2 different power sources, mainly an internal-combustion engine or a diesel engine and an electric motor.
Also in 1997 the German carmaker Audi joined the market with its first hybrid production line, Audi Duo. It still has the title as the first European hybrid car ever sold, even though Audi stopped the production soon after as a result of low sale numbers.
Other major car manufacturers such as Honda, Nissan and Ford tried to enter the market with their own EV cars around the new millennium but they were not mass produced and were only available for lease.
Tesla Motors
In this path that leads to the future of electric cars, there are two very important milestones. First was the creation of the CitiCar, second one was Tesla Motors Inc. being founded in 2003 by one of the most important engineers in 21st century, Elon Musk. Tesla Motors (also known as ‘Tesla”) is an American automaker company specialized in the area of electric cars. Tesla released their first production vehicle in 2008 named Roadster, which resembles the beginning a new are for electric cars. First off all it is the first all-electric mass-produced sports car and it is also the first car that runs on lithium-ion battery cells which helps it to travel an average of 394 kilometres with one charging. Roadster can leap from 0 to 100 km/h in less than 4 seconds, giving 100% torque in an instant and the top speed is electronically limited to 201 km/h. the Roadster production line was discontinued in 2012 but during that period it had sold a total of 2450 units.
Tesla’s second model Tesla Model S has the title of ‘First electric luxury sedan car’. In 2015 it was the best-selling rechargeable electric vehicle and as of June 2016 it is the second best selling plug in car of all time. There are several Model S versions with different battery power. The 90kWh version of the car has range of 500 kilometres, top speed of 249 km/h and acceleration from 0-100 km/h in 2.8 seconds, placing itself as 8th in the list of cars with top acceleration.