UNB-200 Publishing Final Research Paper

Electric vehicles as agents of change in the face of

environmental pollution.
Sheissy Fernández
Universidad Iberoamericana; sfernandez6@est.unibe.do

Abstract: The focus of this paper was on electric vehicle technology and its environmental
effects. The detailed problem discussed in this project was whether hybrids met the
environmental gain requirements proposed by several individuals. The fields of hybrid
forms, market trends, and the future of hybrid technologies have been studied. To evaluate
the technological aspects of the technology, hybrid development and performance data was
examined. A focus group of people, both hybrids and non-hybrids, who recently purchased
vehicles, showed what buyers are looking for in their cars. We concluded that hybrids have
some limitations that compensate for their fuel economy with all the evidence taken into
account. Their higher cost both turns away buyers and makes commercial activity in the cars
less desirable. Overall, in the near future, hybrid technology has a lot of promise.

Keywords: Carbon dioxide emissions, hybrid engines, gasoline consumption.

1. Introduction

The growing presence of global warming and permanent climate change is creating rising
anxiety among the world's population as popular society and technology continue to evolve.
The Earth's atmosphere is starting to change, as shown by the dramatic shrinkage in arid areas
of the planet of polar ice caps and mountain glaciers and longer droughts. The ozone layer of
the earth's atmosphere has large gaps and smog levels are continuously increasing,
contributing to reduced air quality. It is clear that natural factors such as volcanic hotspots are
part of the issue of global warming, but many of the problems are also related to the large
volumes of greenhouse gasses that have been generated by the people of the planet in the past
few decades. It has only been in recent decades that a larger part of society has finally taken
note of these developments and determined that if the global warming trend is to be reversed,
or merely slowed down at this point in time, everything needs to change. Countries across the
globe are striving to reduce CO2 pollution and other dangerous chemical contaminants
significantly. With plans to reduce levels of emissions, anything from automobiles and
factories to livestock and crops is being researched and monitored. Automobiles that are
almost entirely powered by internal combustion engines and spout out unhealthy fumes are
among the most prominent sources of these contaminants. Cars and trucks account for about
25 percent of CO2 emissions, and another 12 percent are responsible for other large types of
transport. With a population of more than six billion people worldwide, more than 50 percent
of whom live in urban areas and rely on transport to contribute to society. Cars are a
significant contributor to urban emissions trends and in the broader context, global warming,
in the view of many. Today, with vast volumes of vehicles on the road, pure combustion

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engines are increasingly becoming a global warming goal. Many of the emission issues are due
to internal combustion engines, but the issue still persists as to what system can propel the next
generation of automotive cars.

2. Experiments/ Materials and Methods

2.1. The Key Components In Electric Vehicles

In layout, the electric vehicle is reasonably basic. The propulsion sections are the main
elements.

Figure 1. An electric vehicle's main elements.

The principal energy storage is the battery. The battery adapter is designed to transform the
power from the mains to charge the battery. The voltage of the battery is DC and I is reversed
into the switched-mode signal to drive the motor into the power electronic inverter. The
battery can be supplemented with the other electrical components in a vehicle by a DC-DC
converter that changes the voltage from the battery system to a lower voltage, like 5V-20V.

2.2. Emissions

Whenever a car starts, pollutants that fill our atmosphere are created by sitting idle or running
it. These pollutants include nitrogen gas (N2), carbon dioxide (CO2), water vapor (H2O),
carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbons or volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and nitrogen
oxides (NO and NO2, together referred to as NOx). In the case of a vehicle, the air we breathe
contains of 78 percent nitrogen gas; much of it only passes through and is not deemed a toxic
pollution. Carbon, which creates CO and CO2, a poison gas and a suspected culprit of global
warming when bound to oxygen, is a result of combustion. VOCs are generated and are a
major component of smog from evaporated, unburned fuels. Smog and acid rain are also
significant components of NOx. Many of these pollutants are naturally occurring chemicals,
but the quantities at which they are emitted by vehicles are the relevant aspect of them.

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Figure 2.

2.3. Energy Consumption in Output

The products that cars are made with need to come from somewhere, and both of them use
electricity through whatever method that might be. Some procedures need more resources
than others and all of this contributes to both the expense of the vehicle and the environmental
impact it has. The electricity that goes through these systems must come from a kind of power
plant. Coal-fired, nuclear, hydroelectric, wind-powered or operated by various other smaller
means can be power plants. There are harmful impacts on the atmosphere that go hand and
hand with them no matter what direction the energy comes from.

Figure 3. Shows the use of energy which goes into the development of materials for
vehicles.

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2.4. Energy Consumption for Manufacturing Vehicles

The values were graphed as a way of reference after all the estimates for energy consumption
had been made, see Figure 10. The graph indicates that all of the electric cars analyzed used
more resources in their production processes for primary material consumption. In certain
cases, 40 percent more energy was absorbed by the hybrids than the basic ICE. This is due to
the high volumes of resources used to produce greater quantities of materials such as
aluminum, zinc, and stuff that will fall under the category of Other.'

Figure 4.

2.5. Source of Power

Completely electric vehicles only achieve less than half of the emissions of gasoline-powered
automobiles. Annually, fully electric vehicles emit 4,587 pounds of CO2, while 23,885 pounds
of CO2 are emitted by diesel, hybrid, and plug-in hybrids. This figure only includes emissions
produced for the purpose of charging the cars; it does not cover emissions from the production
of vehicles, power plants, combustion, upstream fuel output and grid losses. The estimated
total U.S. emissions are 202 g CO2e/km with all those components taken into account, and the
value for a diesel vehicle is around 300 g CO2e/km (Wilson, 2013). The more electricity
generated by renewable energies, the greener fully electric vehicles become and the closer to
the reality their promise of "zero emissions" gets.

2.5. Batteries

For fully electric cars, the lithium-ion batteries store the electricity. Lithium-ion batteries often
allow the car, on a single charge, to travel up to 335 miles; the exact travel mileage depends on
the type of the vehicle. Lithium-ion batteries have come a long way since the first deliveries to

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customers took place in 1992. They now carry twice the weight of electricity and just cost $300
per kilowatt-hour.

2.6. Experiment

CNG, held under high pressure, is a gaseous fuel (natural gas). The intake can thus be
expressed in Nm3/100km, but also in kg/100km. Nm3 stands for under standard conditions, a
cubic meter. However, natural gas vehicle consumption is most commonly expressed in
kg/100km. 1638 grams of oxygen is needed in order to combust this carbon into CO2. Then the
total is 614 + 1638 = 2252 grams of L-gas CO2/kg.

Figure 5. Evolution of restrictions on pollution.

As a first step, this paper aims to provide a simpler formula for measuring CO2 emissions from
the combustion of petrol and alcohol as well as an estimation of the emissions of contaminants
to the national fleet of vehicles and SUVs sold, based on data from carbon monoxide emissions
and the quantity of light vehicles and SUVs sold. The first step in achieving the pollution
calculations is to increase the volume of gCO2/km emitted per car, which can be achieved by
multiplying the gCO2/L values and the estimated fuel consumption by km/L, but the average
real emissions would be used for this work. In the next step, the average mileage driven per
vehicle is calculated and the number of vehicles is eventually increased.

2.7. Hybrid Vehicle Efficiency

The gasoline engine can be much smaller in a hybrid automobile than that of a standard car
and is thus more powerful. Many vehicles require a comparatively large engine to produce
adequate power for the vehicle to accelerate rapidly. However in a small engine, by using
smaller and lighter components, reliability can be increased by reducing the number of
cylinders and the engine running closer to its full load. Compared to larger engines, the
following are some reasons for the reliability of smaller engines:

• The larger engine is bigger, meaning that the automobile requires more energy when
accelerating or facing an incline.

• The pistons and other internal parts are heavier, often taking additional energy up and
down the cylinder;.

• The cylinders' displacement is greater, so that more fuel is used for each cylinder.

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Figure 6. CO2 emissions from 2005 to 2009 for traditional cars.

3. Results

The use of fully electric cars has a major influence on reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.
Electric vehicles emit less than half the volume of CO2 as traditional gasoline cars do annually.

Table 1.

The aim of the analysis was to put together all the pieces of knowledge to give a complete
image of this technology's possible significance. While electric cars could now make a
difference, if the government and lobbying parties make a substantial effort to promote further
policy reform, testing, and development of more electric vehicles, their effect may be increased.
The restricted research performed on cradle-to-grave pollution of lithium-ion battery output
was one of the limitations of this review. As this area is relatively young and each battery has
its own chemical history, no output pollutants have been reported. This is an important aspect
of the debate on electric vehicles since the manufacturing of these batteries is not only the most
costly aspect of the battery, it can also be the part of production that uses the most electricity.
Further research on electric cars, clean energy and lithium-ion batteries, especially the different
chemical compositions of the batteries on the market, needs to be carried out.

4. Conclusion

Must hybrids satisfy the demands that have been proposed by society over the past couple
of years? It is the central issue we set out in this paper to answer, and to answer it, it has
several variables that need to be taken into account. People buying cars need to decide what
they want in a vehicle, pick the right car, and be mindful of the investment they are making.
Before seeking to market hybrids, car makers and dealerships need to consider the desires and
habits of customers. Yeah, technology is evolving and has promise, but in order to function
successfully, it has to be applied properly. Overall, hybrids are not really living up to their

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standards. Firstly, before they even hit highways, vehicles that are meant to be more
environmentally friendly hybrids emit far more pollution. In some cases, as opposed to non-
hybrids, hybrids use four times as much energy in output and are in turn responsible for four
times as much toxic waste that is emitted into the environment. It is easy to leap to the
conclusion that customer dollars would be saved by a hybrid that gets higher gas mileage than
a non-hybrid, but initial costs must be taken into account. When a hybrid's added initial cost is
so much, the investment would be very difficult to break even with. In some cases, hybrids
must be powered to high mileages to be genuinely worth paying for. Sometimes these miles
are even with, or several times greater than the average mileage at which a customer keeps
their vehicle.

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