Today's Car and It's Effects on the Environment

As time approaches the 21st century, the automobile has become our major source of mass transportation. Everything about our culture and society has developed around this necessary form of travel. However, along with this necessity comes the issue of pollution to the environment. These great gasoline powered vehicles have contributed greatly to the impurity of our environment. The two prominent alternative fueled vehicles yet brought up are the Electric car EV and the Hybrid electric car. The ultimate clean, efficient car is the EV, a vehicle powered by an electrical motor, which is powered by batteries and controlled by an on-board computer. But there are questions about the mid-term viability of EV vehicles. This is due to unresolved technical issues of on-board energy storage capacity, high vehicle cost, and infrastructure limitations e.g., lack of public charging stations, repair replacement facilities, and battery recycling centers. HEV vehicles are almost as clean as the EV s and have vehicle performance comparable to that of today s standard internal combustion engine vehicles. More important, such performance appears to be available in the mid-term future e.g., 2002, and therefore represents a practical, technically achievable alternative approach. Some suggest we develop both the EV s and HEV s in parallel, because many of the technical advancements can be shared and because either or both will be needed to achieve efficiency and clean air goals.