What electric Car? - What is an electric car?

An electric car is driven by an electric motor, rather than a conventional internal combustion engine.

You might think that electric cars are a new thing, but they've been around since the earliest days of automotive history. However, they fell out of favour once petrol-powered cars became cheaper and people required their greater range.

Is it all a gimmick?
As technology advances, environmental concerns become more important and as governments give incentives for low-emission cars, electric cars are fast becoming a realistic prospect again.

Their attraction is an obvious one: zero exhaust emissions, not least because they don’t have an exhaust. However, there might also be financial advantages through lower rates of tax and cheaper 'fuel'.

In London, for instance, cars such as the Reva G-Wiz are now a common sight, because they are exempt from paying the Congestion Charge.

Are they real cars?
Don’t think that all electric cars are ‘quadricycles’ like the G-Wiz, though. The Tesla Roadster, for example, has already shown that a genuine sports car can be electric-powered, while the likes of the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt prove that there's an electric-powered future for even the most mainstream of family hatchbacks – with ‘proper’ levels of equipment, comfort and safety.

Naturally, there are still the issues of how the power that they use is produced – you might charge an electric car from power generated by a fossil-fuel burning power station, for example – but a car with zero tailpipe emissions is obviously a good thing for local air quality.