Assignment 1

MBA/15/3904 Sahan Wijeratne

Group – A [A-3]

Course : MBA 509: Business Law Instructor : Dr. Wickrema Weerasooriya Term : July – September 2015

Postgraduate Institute of Management University of Sri Jayewardenepura

Declaration

“I am fully aware of the content under “plagiarism” stated in chapter 6 of the PIM student handbook, and I hereby declare and affirm that I have strictly observed the law relating to intellectual property, copyright and plagiarism in this exercise”

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Sahan Wijeratne
MBA/15/3904
08th October, 2015

1. Introduction – The Inception of the Modern Electric Vehicle The concept of the Electric Vehicle, although generally conceived as a modern invention, finds its origins as early on as the turn of the Eighteenth century. An electric vehicle (EV), also known as an electric drive vehicle, uses one or more electric motors or traction motors for propulsion. An electric vehicle may be powered through a collector system by electricity from off-vehicle sources, or may be self-contained with a battery or generator to convert fuel to electricity, the latter being the base for the modern electric automobile that used globally today. Electric Vehicles first came into popular existence in the mid-19th century, when electricity was among the preferred methods for motor vehicle propulsion, providing a level of comfort and ease of operation that could not be achieved by the gasoline cars of the time. Contrary to the trends in most other sectors, greenhouse gas emissions of the transport sector are still increasing, and are predicted to grow further in the coming years, at current policies. As there is no simple solution to the challenge of achieving significant CO2 reductions in transport, it has become clear that a large range of efficient and effective CO2 reduction measures will have to be taken. In the coming decades, it is clearly evident that electric vehicles could play a significant role in this move towards sustainable transport. If these vehicles run on renewable electricity, they could substantially cut CO2 emissions and improve local air quality. 2. A Brief History
Electric Vehicles are not as modern as we think. Electric motive power started in 1827, when Slovak-Hungarian priest Anyos Jedlik built the first crude but viable electric motor, provided with stator, rotor and commutator, and the year after he used it to power a tiny car. A few years later, in 1835, professor Sibrandus Stratingh of University of Groningen, the Netherlands, built a small scale electric car and a Robert Anderson of Scotland is reported to have made a crude electric carriage sometime between the years of 1832 and 1839.

Figure 1: Thomas Edison and a 1914 Detroit Electric model 47

Source: The National Museum of American History.

Around the same period, early experimental electrical cars were moving on rails, too. American blacksmith and inventor Thomas Davenport built a toy electric locomotive, powered by a primitive electric motor, in 1835. In 1838, a Scotsman named Robert Davidson built an electric locomotive that attained a speed of four miles per hour (6 km/h). In England a patent was granted in 1840 for the use of rails as conductors of electric current, and similar American patents were issued to Lilley and Colten in 1847.

EVs were among the earliest automobiles, and before the pre-eminence of light, powerful internal combustion engines, electric automobiles held many vehicle land speed and distance records in the early 1900s. They were produced by Baker Electric, Columbia Electric, Detroit Electric, and others, and at one point in history out-sold gasoline-powered vehicles. In fact, in 1900, 28% of the cars on the road in the USA were electric. EVs were so popular that even President Woodrow Wilson and his secret service agents toured Washington DC in their Milburn Electrics, which covered 60–70 miles per charge.

By the 20th century, electric cars and rail transport were commonplace, with commercial electric automobiles having the majority of the market. Over time their general-purpose commercial use reduced to specialist roles, as platform trucks, forklift trucks, ambulances, tow tractors and urban delivery vehicles, such as the iconic British milk float; for most of the 20th century, the UK was the world's largest user of electric road vehicles.

3. How does it work?
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 near 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.

Figure 2: Basic working of an Electric Car

Source: Mitsubishi Electric.

While a gasoline engine, with its fuel lines, exhaust pipes, coolant hoses and intake manifold, tends to look like a plumbing project. In the same aspect, an electric car can be defined as 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.

4.1 Inside the Electric Vehicle.
Now, let’s dele into the interior workings of an Electric car. The heart of an electric car is the combination of: * The electric motor. * The motor's controller. * The batteries.
The controller takes power from the batteries and delivers it to the motor. The accelerator pedal hooks to a pair of potentiometers (variable resistors), and these potentiometers provide the signal that tells the controller how much power it is supposed to deliver. The controller can deliver zero power (when the car is stopped), full power (when the driver floors the accelerator pedal), or any power level in between.
Figure 3: Block Diagram of a basic Electric car.

Source: www.howstuffworks.com

4.2 The Electric Motor.
The Electric motor is considered the heart of any electric car. Electric cars can use AC or DC motors: * If the motor is a DC motor, then it may run on anything from 96 to 192 volts. Many of the DC motors used in electric cars come from the electric forklift industry. * If it is an AC motor, then it probably is a three-phase AC motor running at 240 volts AC with a 300 volt battery pack.
DC installations tend to be simpler and less expensive. A typical motor will be in the 20,000-watt to 30,000-watt range. A typical controller will be in the 40,000-watt to 60,000-watt range (for example, a 96-volt controller will deliver a maximum of 400 or 600 amps). DC motors have the nice feature that you can overdrive them (up to a factor of 10-to-1) for short periods of time. This is great for short bursts of acceleration. The only limitation is heat build-up in the motor. Too much overdriving and the motor heats up to the point where it self-destructs.
AC installations allow the use of almost any industrial three-phase AC motor, and that can make finding a motor with a specific size, shape or power rating easier. AC motors and controllers often have a regen feature. During braking, the motor turns into a generator and delivers power back to the batteries.

4.3 The Battery.
While most current highway-speed electric vehicle designs focus on lithium-ion and other lithium-based variants a variety of alternative batteries can also be used. Lithium-based batteries are often chosen for their high power and energy density but have a limited shelf life and cycle lifetime which can significantly increase the running costs of the vehicle. Variants such as Lithium iron phosphate and Lithium-titanate attempt to solve the durability issues with traditional lithium-ion batteries.

Figure 4: Prototype 75 kilowatt/hour Lithium Iron Polymer Battery developed by NASA

Source: NASAs guide to a Green future, 2012

Other battery types include lead acid batteries which are still the most used form of power for most of the electric vehicles used today. The initial construction costs are significantly lower than for other battery types, but the power to weight ratio is poorer than other designs, Nickel metal hydride (NiMH) which are somewhat heavier and less efficient than lithium ion, but also cheaper. Several other battery chemistries are in development such as zinc-air battery which could be much lighter and liquid batteries that might be rapidly refilled, rather than recharged, are also under development.

4. Day to day Aspects of an Electric Vehicle.
The introduction of the Electric vehicle into the daily life of the normal working class citizen is, truth be told, only just starting to make an impact in their lives. While the electric car has gained a growing popularity in the western world, on this side of the globe, that is, in Asiatic countries [apart from Japan and the likes], the Electric car is still looked upon as an acquired taste. The main reason for this is the lack of general knowledge amongst the populous as to the basic aspects of the Electric car, such as Retail Price, Charging instead of re-fuelling, Range of the Car, Maintenance, etc. Let us look into understanding these aspects in a brief way.

5.4 The Price.
An important goal for electric vehicles is overcoming the disparity between their costs of development, production, and operation, with respect to those of equivalent internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs). As of 2013, electric cars are significantly more expensive than conventional internal combustion engine vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles due to the cost of their lithium-ion battery pack. However, battery prices are coming down about 8% per annum with mass production, and are expected to drop further.

Not only the high purchase price is hindering the mass transition from gasoline cars to electric cars, but also the continued subsidization of fossil fuels, such as huge tax breaks and financial help in finding and developing oil fields for oil companies, higher allowed pollution for coal-fired power stations owned by oil refineries, as well as un-priced harm resulting for tailpipe emissions. According to a survey taken by Nielsen for the Financial Times in 2010, around three quarters of American and British car buyers have or would consider buying an electric car, but they are unwilling to pay more for an electric car. The survey showed that 65% of Americans and 76% of Britons are not willing to pay more for an electric car than the price of a conventional car.

Several governments have established policies and economic incentives to overcome existing barriers, promote the sales of electric cars, and fund further development of electric vehicles, batteries and components. Several national and local governments have established tax credits, subsidies, and other incentives to reduce the net purchase price of electric cars and other plug-ins

5.5 Charging an Electric Car.
Any electric car that uses batteries needs a charging system to recharge the batteries. The charging system has two goals: * To pump electricity into the batteries as quickly as the batteries will allow * To monitor the batteries and avoid damaging them during the charging process
The most sophisticated charging systems monitor battery voltage, current flow and battery temperature to minimize charging time. The charger sends as much current as it can without raising battery temperature too much. Less sophisticated chargers might monitor voltage or amperage only and make certain assumptions about average battery characteristics. A charger like this might apply maximum current to the batteries up through 80 percent of their capacity, and then cut the current back to some preset level for the final 20 percent to avoid overheating the batteries.
Figure 5: Charging Plug of a normal Electric car.

Source: www.howstuffworks.com

The normal household charging system has the advantage of convenience -- anywhere you can find an outlet, you can recharge. The disadvantage is charging time. A normal household 120-volt outlet typically has a 15-amp circuit breaker, meaning that the maximum amount of energy that the car can consume is approximately 1,500 watts, or 1.5 kilowatt-hours per hour. Since the battery pack in Jon's car normally needs 12 to 15 kilowatt-hours for a full recharge, it can take 10 to 12 hours to fully charge the vehicle using this technique.

5.6 The Range – How far will this thing actually go?
The range of an electric car depends on the number and type of batteries used. The weight and type of vehicle, and the performance demands of the driver, also have an impact just as they do on the range of traditional vehicles. Range may also significantly be reduced in cold weather. Table 1 depicts the affective range and cycles of operation of the Nissan Leaf, which is at the moment, the world’s most widely used modern electric car.
Table 1: Charging Plug of a normal Electric car
Source: www.wikipedia.com
Electric cars are virtually universally fitted with an expected range display. This may take into account many factors, including battery charge, the recent average power use, the ambient temperature, driving style, air conditioning system, route topography etc. to come up with an estimated driving range. However, since factors can vary over the route, the estimate can vary from the actual achieved range. People can thus be concerned that they would run out of energy from their battery before reaching their destination, a worry known as range anxiety.

5. The Benefits of Driving Electric.

It is well understood that, though Electric Vehicles are a relatively new technology, they provide many clear benefits to the user as well as the environment as opposed to its gas guzzling counterpart. These benefits are quite visible and substantial when considering the main aspects of the Electric Vehicle as an alternate.

6.7 Energy Efficiency.
Internal combustion engines are relatively inefficient at converting on-board fuel energy to propulsion as most of the energy is wasted as heat. On the other hand, electric motors are more efficient in converting stored energy into driving a vehicle, and electric drive vehicles do not consume energy while at rest or coasting, and some of the energy lost when braking is captured and reused through regenerative braking, which captures as much as one fifth of the energy normally lost during braking.

Typically, conventional gasoline engines effectively use only 15% of the fuel energy content to move the vehicle or to power accessories, and diesel engines can reach on-board efficiencies of 20%, while electric drive vehicles have on-board efficiency of around 80%.

6.8 Environmental Impact of Manufacturing an Electric Vehicle.
Electric cars are not completely environmentally friendly, and have impacts arising from manufacturing the vehicle. Since battery packs are heavy, manufacturers work to lighten the rest of the vehicle. As a result, electric car components contain many lightweight materials that require a lot of energy to produce and process, such as aluminium and carbon-fiber-reinforced polymers. Electric motors and batteries also add to the energy of electric-car manufacture.
Figure 6: The Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia is one of the largest known lithium reserves in the world.

Source: www.wikipedia.com

Additionally, the magnets in the motors of many electric vehicles contain rare earth metals. In a study released in 2012, a group of MIT researchers calculated that global mining of two rare Earth metals, neodymium and dysprosium, would need to increase 700% and 2600%, respectively, over the next 25 years to keep pace with various green-tech plans. Substitute strategies do exist, but deploying them introduces trade-offs in efficiency and cost. The same MIT study noted that the materials used in batteries are also harmful to the environment. Compounds such as lithium, copper, and nickel are mined from the Earth and processed in a manner that demands energy and can release toxic components. In regions with poor legislature, mineral exploitation can even further extend risks. The local population may be exposed to toxic substances through air and groundwater contamination.

6.9 Air Pollution and The Carbon footprint.
Electric cars have several benefits over conventional internal combustion engine automobiles, including a significant reduction of local air pollution, especially in cities, as they have no tailpipe, and therefore do not emit harmful tailpipe pollutants such as particulates (soot), volatile organic compounds, hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, ozone, lead, and various oxides of nitrogen. The clean air benefit may only be local because, depending on the source of the electricity used to recharge the batteries, air pollutant emissions may be shifted to the location of the generation plants. This is referred to as the long tailpipe of electric vehicles.

Nevertheless, introducing EV would come with major environmental benefits in most (EU) countries, except those relying on old coal fired power plants. So for example the part of electricity, which is produced with renewable energy is (2014) in Norway 99 percent and in Germany 30 percent.

The amount of carbon dioxide emitted depends on the emission intensity of the power source used to charge the vehicle, the efficiency of the said vehicle and the energy wasted in the charging process. For mains electricity the emission intensity varies significantly per country and within a particular country it will vary depending on demand, the availability of renewable sources and the efficiency of the fossil fuel-based generation used at a given time.

Charging a vehicle using renewable energy (e.g. wind power or solar panels) yields very low carbon footprint-only that to produce and install the generation system. Even on a fossil-fuelled grid, it's quite feasible for a household with a solar panel to produce enough energy to account for their electric car usage, thus (on average) cancelling out the emissions of charging the vehicle, whether or not the panel directly charges it.

6. Conclusion

As of September 2015, there are over 30 models of highway-capable all-electric passenger cars and utility vans available in the market for retail sales. By mid-September 2015, about 620,000 highway-capable all-electric passenger cars and light utility vehicles have been sold worldwide out of total global sales of one million plug-in electric cars.

Several countries have established grants and tax credits for the purchase of new electric cars depending on battery size. The U.S. offers a federal income tax credit up to US$7,500 and several states have additional incentives. The UK offers a Plug-in Car Grant up to a maximum of £5,000 (US$7,600). U.S. government also pledged US$2.4 billion in federal grants for the development of advanced technologies for electric cars and batteries.

As of April 2011, 15 European Union member states provide economic incentives for the purchase of new electrically chargeable vehicles, which consist of tax reductions and exemptions, as well as of bonus payments for buyers of all-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles, and some alternative fuel vehicles.

The Future is clear…

List of references
Electric Revolution. (n.d.). Retrieved October 13, 2013, from MindTools: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newSTR_44.htm

Tesla, Nikola. (1892). The Electrical World, New York: Lindsey Publications (Pvt) Ltd

The Electric Vehicle. Retrieved October 01, 2015 from http://www.wikipedia.com The Evolution of the Electric Automobile. Retrieved September 29, 2015 from http://www.howstuffworks.com