Are EV and Plug-in Hybrids the Cars of the Future?

16 November 2010

President Obama looks at a newly built Chevy Volt during a visit to a GM car factory in Hamtramck Michigan in July

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: I’m Shirley Griffith.

STEVE EMBER: And I’m Steve Ember with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. Starting this Friday, the auto industry will show off more than nine hundred of its latest vehicles at the LA Auto Show in Los Angeles, California. The event provides a look at about fifty hybrid, electric and alternative fuel cars that could soon be available in the United States.

Join us as we discuss the new kinds of cars, and what this means for the future of driving in America.

(MUSIC)

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: At the beginning of the nineteen hundreds, the automobile was rare. Many early models ran on electric batteries. It was not until Henry Ford’s gas-powered Model T that the internal combustion engine and the car became inseparable.

Henry Ford had wanted to develop an electric car. But the technology of the time was not ready. Today, the same problems faced by early automobile pioneers remain. But materials are available to overcome the old problems. The result is that electric batteries and motors may finally power cars of the future. Some experts predict that five to ten percent of cars on the road in twenty twenty will be electric.

STEVE EMBER: The heart of any electric car is its battery. A battery stores electricity and makes it available for use by the motor. Partly electric cars are already common in many countries, including the United States and Japan.