Electric and Hydrogen Powered Cars
As the world continues to fight and experience the impact of global warming, there has been a major push towards finding a source of clean energy to prevent any further damage. A major contributor to the damage done to the environment has been gas and diesel powered vehicles. Gas vehicles emit greenhouse gasses that prove to have a significant impact on the environment. In order to combat this, car manufacturers have looked towards alternative ways to power motor vehicles to achieve sustainability.
Development of Electric Vehicles
The power source that has been most prevalent for the past few years has been the use of battery powered electric vehicles, as seen utilized by Tesla and now many other car manufacturers. As discussed by the authors of the “International Journal of Hydrogen Energy”, “Emissions from fuel cells are extremely low hence the increased interest in their use and increased efforts by scientists and researchers across the globe to improve their efficiency and reduce their costs,” (Wilberforce, El-Hassan, Khatib, Al Makky, Baroutaji, Carton, Olabi, 2017). In other words, battery powered vehicles are much more environmentally friendly than gas cars, but the lack of research and development leaves these resources at a higher price. Further research is needed to bring down the price of these fuel cells which will consequently lower the price tag of electric vehicles. Through research already done, scientists have found that hydrogen is another potential renewable energy fuel source that could replace gas in our cars.
Future of Hydrogen Vehicles
Hydrogen powered cars are a rather new, undeveloped method to powering vehicles in a sustainable way. As of now, there are only a couple hydrogen cars available on the market and they are even more costly than the electric alternatives. However, it is believed that hydrogen cars would be even more environmentally friendly than electric or hybrid vehicles. As the authors point out “Hydrogen is often considered as CO2 — free energy if produced from renewable and nuclear energy. But with the latest technologies for hydrogen production, storage, transportation and distribution, as well as fuel cell emissions, if the hydrogen is from renewable energy sources, the hydrogen vehicle generates zero emission CO2, while plug-in hybrids are still not fully green since it is a hybrid model i.e. partially reducing emissions,” (Wilberforce et. al., 2017). This means that in the future when hydrogen vehicles become more widely available to the consumer, they will be the ultimate green energy vehicle. We must wait to see how the continued production and development of electric and hydrogen powered cars will impact the environment and change how manufacturers power their vehicles.
Citation
Wilberforce, T., El-Hassan, Z., Khatib, F., Al Makky, A., Baroutaji, A., Carton, J. G., & Olabi, A. G. (2017). Developments of electric cars and fuel cell hydrogen electric cars. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 42(40), 25695–25734. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2017.07.054
