­­Ele­ctric cars are something that show up in the news all the time. There are several reasons for the continuing interest in these vehicles:

  • Electric cars create less pollution than gasoline-powered cars, so they are an environmentally friendly alternative to gasoline-powered vehicles (especially in cities).
  • Any news story about hybrid cars usually talks about electric cars as well.
  • Vehicles powered by fuel cells are electric cars, and fuel cells are getting a lot of attention right now in the news.

An electric car is a car powered by an electric motor rather than a gasoline engine.

From the outside, you would probably have no idea that a car is electric. In most cases, electric cars are created by converting a gasoline-powered car, and in that case it is impossible to tell. When you drive an electric car, often the only thing that clues you in to its true nature is the fact that it is nearly silent.

Under the hood, there are a lot of differences between gasoline and electric cars:

  • The gasoline engine is replaced by an electric motor.
  • The electric motor gets its power from a controller.
  • The controller gets its power from an array of rechargeable batteries.

A gasoline engine, with its fuel lines, exhaust pipes, coolant hoses and intake manifold, tends to look like a plumbing project. An electric car is definitely a wiring project.

In order to get a feeling for how electric cars work in general, let's start by looking at a typical electric car to see how it comes together.

The EV Challenge
EV Challenge

Watch footage of students competing with model solar-powered cars and full-sized electric vehicles at an EV Challenge.
The EV Challenge (www.evchallenge.org) is an innovative educational program for middle and high school students that centers around building electric-powered cars:
  • Middle school students build and compete model solar-powered cars.
  • High school students convert full-sized gasoline-powered vehicles into electric vehicles. It's a complete conversion project, as described in the previous section of this article.

Students learn about electric technology throughout the year and then come together for a two-day finale. In addition to building the electric vehicle, high school students compete in autocross (speed and agility) and range events, vehicle design, oral presentations, troubleshooting, Web site design, and community involvement.

The EV Challenge gets a majority of its funding from corporate sponsors and government organizations, including Advanced Energy Corporation, CP&L/Progress Energy, Duke Power, Dominion Virginia Power, the NC Energy Office, the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and the EPA.

Jon Mauney (whose car is featured at the beginning of this article) is on the steering committee for EV Challenge. According to Jon, CP&L started the EV Challenge program in North Carolina. The program then spread to South Carolina, Florida, Virginia, West Virginia, and Georgia, and is now spreading nationwide. Thousands of students have participated in the EV Challenge.

If you or your school would like more information on the EV Challenge program, please see www.evchallenge.org.

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