Assessment of the Environmental Impact of Electric Vehicles Coursework

Assessment of the Environmental Impact of Electric Vehicles - Coursework Example Conclusion 18 References 1. Introduction Electric vehicles have become a strong trend in the global market. The benefits of electric vehicles, as analyzed above, compared to the conventional vehicles are often used as a justification for promoting the use of these vehicles worldwide. In this context, the following problem appears: which would be the impact of replacing a conventional internal combustion engine vehicle with an electric vehicle capable of similar duty? The above issue is explored in this paper. The following condition is set† the platform of the vehicle remain the same. For the needs of this paper, an electric car has been chosen as the mode of the vehicle, the use of which will be modified. While exploring this issue it has been necessary to cover a series of other topics, such as the characteristics and the differences of electric vehicles compared to the conventional vehicles. ... In any case, conventional vehicles are more likely to cause severe environmental damages, even if the last years their environmental impact has been effectively controlled (Larminie and Lowry 2003, p.258), a fact that can be used for confronting the negative criticism against the conventional vehicles. It should be noted that the replacement of a conventional vehicle with an electric vehicle is not always unavoidable, since conventional vehicles can also promote sustainability, even at lower levels than the electric vehicles. However, if other benefits are targeted, then such replacement should be based on the rules and the processes presented below. 2. The Impact of Replacing a Conventional Internal Combustion Engine Vehicle with an Electric Vehicle Capable of Similar Duty 2.1 Electric vehicles – Description and Characteristics Electric vehicles are those vehicles that are ‘propelled by one or more electric motors rather by an internal – combustion engine’ (Faiz, Weaver and Walsh 1996, p.227). This is the key difference between the electric vehicles and the conventional vehicles, which are based on an internal combustion engine (Faiz, Weaver and Walsh 1996). The range of electric vehicles can be high; there are electric autos, motorcycles, trains and so on (Faiz, Weaver and Walsh 1996). In fact, any conventional vehicle can become electric under the terms that it is appropriately transformed following a particular process (Faiz, Weaver and Walsh 1996). In practice, there are three different types of electric vehicles: a) the electric vehicles that rely on an external generation system, i.e. a generation system which is not incorporated