Electric vehicles

The basic advantages of electric vehicles (EVs) are: (a) no emissions at the point of their operation, (b) very low emissions, if the energy is produced in normal power stations, (c) lower energy consumption compared to conventional cars, and (d) very low noise during operation. Their main disadvantage is the limited driving range due to the limited capacity of the battery which cannot be usually recharged quickly. Since most of the cars in cities don't drive more than 50 km during a day and since this is easily possible for electric vehicles they are the best vehicles which help to improve the environmental conditions in cities and their suburbs. This paper describes the components of electric vehicles, the demonstration projects with electric vehicles in Europe and the necessary infrastructure for introducing electric vehicles on a large scale.