What are advantages of using elctric powered cars?
Charging your electric car is much cheaper than buying gasoline, for the same amount of miles driven. With an electric car you remove yourself from the gouging price swings of gasoline markets.
They are more energy efficient. They are the first but necessary step in the reduction of overall carbon emissions. In the US, most electricity is produced from fossil fuels so all electric cars do is shift the emissions from the exhaust pipe to the power plant. However, with an electric car, you would then be able to put solar panels on your roof and charge it that way, which is not possible with a gasoline powered car. Furthermore, with future developments in solar panel technology and manufacturing, electric cars will have solar panels embedded in their paneling which will make it possible to drive up to 50 km or more on a sunny day for free.
Limited range is not an issue with series hybrids, which have a small gas generator in the corner which kicks in when the batteries are low and charges the batteries for the few times you want to go more than the battery range (typically 150 km or so). In this respect, they have similar range as a conventional gasoline powered car.
Electric cars also have better performance since you can still get maximum torque at zero RPM. They produce no smog chemicals and are quieter (this may be a safety issue though).
When mass produced, they will end up being cheaper when you factor in all the gas you'd save over 10 years.
With NiMH batteries, they last well over 10 years. The NiMH and lithium batteries they use are non toxic, and due to their value, would inevitably end up being recycled anyways (why would you throw money away into the ditch?)
Unfortunately, their introduction is being hindered by a patent on the NiMH battery obtained by ECD, which was then bought up by Chevron. It doesn't expire until 2014. Instead, manufacturers have had to use lithium batteries, which currently aren't as good and are more expensive.
Here is the patent:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6969567.PN.&OS=PN/6969567&RS=PN/6969567
Here is a 2005 annual report from ECD which explains the significance of their abusive intentions with this patent (they sued Toyota and Panasonic to keep them from making them). Scroll 1/3 of the way down the page to the second page 11 (not the first page 11). Read from the bottom of page 11 to page 15. To give my own interpretation of what they are saying: "We own the patent rights to the NiMH battery. To avoid patent abuse lawsuits, and to uphold obligations to previous users of the batteries, we are required to allow a limited use of the battery. We will therefore allow certain manufacturers to use it in parallel drive Prius types of hybrids, but not series hybrids or purely electric EV's, or any HEV or EV that plugs into your wall. We will allow this because parallel hybrids are complicated, expensive, and sufficiently inefficient that they do not pose a threat to Chevron's oil sales."
http://esignal.brand.edgar-online.com/EFX_dll/EDGARpro.dll?FetchFilingHTML1?SessionID=9v_SWOrCD0bgpyB&ID=3960401&AnchorName=HH_&AnchorDistance=0&BeginHTML=%3Cb%3E%3Cfont+color%3D%22%23cc0000%22%3E&EndHTML=%3C%2Ffont%3E%3C%2Fb%3E&SearchText=%3CNEAR%2F4%3E(%22SAMUEL+W.%22%2C%22BODMAN%22)
www.ev1.org presents a lot of information on electric cars and athough it's political, it appears to be entirely correct.
Also see the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car?", available on Youtube if you search for it.
