Whispering into the Future

It looks like just another Formula 1 race. The difference: these cars are whispering around the track. No neighbours upset about the noise here.

As I write, Saturday September 13th, 2014, the first FIA Formula E race is on in Beijing. Why is that something to write about? While the racing cars look like ordinary formula 1 racing cars, they are powered by electric motors. The benefits? Less noise, less car parts, and more importantly, the energy used to charge the batteries could come from any source that can be converted into electricity: wind, solar, hydroelectricity, fossil fuels, and even what is currently perhaps the darkest sheep of the family, nuclear energy.

About a hundred years ago, internal combustion engine (petrol/gasoline) and electric vehicles were equally crude, but the internal combustion engine option was chosen for various reasons. It appears that the planet has taken an environmentally costly 100-year detour around electricity powered vehicle technology and that detour is now literally running out of fuel: crude oil extraction is no longer cheap, and the environmental impact can no longer be ignored. Liquifiable fuel alternatives to crude oil have similar environmental issues attached: in the face of the increasingly difficult to ignore global climate change, carbon dioxide emissions associated with the use of crude oil, natural gas, shale gas and coal appear nothing less than a death sentence for many in vulnerable places around the world.

The detour may be coming to an end, but before it does, a couple of improvements are required as far as the current standard motor vehicle is concerned: lower battery cost and higher battery capacity. Both are improving steadily. As far as lighter vehicles are concerned however, the sun of a new era has risen into view. Examples: electric bicycles in Japan, and bicycles and motorcycles in China already ply the streets in increasing numbers in this silent revolution. For many, the detour is over.