The first mass-produced electric vehicles traveled a little more than 100 km without recharging.

The new gold standard is over 300 km, but there are models that can do more. For example, the Chinese Aion LX Plus, which has a declared travel range of more than 1000 km.

Charging an electric car will not take as long as before. Fast charging with direct current at large electric charging stations (ECS) allows you to do this in an hour. At the station with a capacity of 150 kW, an electric car receives a power reserve of up to 100 km in 10 minutes. To help car enthusiasts – applications with ECS cards (for example, PlugShare by Recarego). Charging from a 220 V home outlet will take all night – it charges the car in one hour for 7-14 km of travel, and a special home station – for 30-40 km of travel.

According to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA), in the Netherlands, there are an average of 47 electric filling stations for every 100 km of motorways, in Germany – 19. But the EU has its outsiders: in Lithuania, Latvia, Greece, Poland and Romania, one 200 km or more. In Montenegro, at the beginning of 2022, one station falls on 170 km of track. In order to reach the current level of Norway, we need to install another 3,250 charging stations.

In overseas markets, for example, Volvo warrants the battery in the Volvo C40 Recharge electric car for eight years or 160,000 km, whichever comes first. In Russia, the warranty period will be five years or 100,000 km, says Volvo Cars Russia brand product expert Maxim Belikov (sales of the model have not yet begun). In general, car manufacturers indicate that battery life depends on the conditions in which it is used and how often it is charged using high-speed charging.

Sooner or later, all cars go to the scrap. In the case of cars with internal combustion engines, it is necessary to recycle the battery, spark plugs, motor, gearbox, fluids filling them, etc., in the case of electric cars, batteries and electric motors. The growing number of electric vehicles poses a major challenge for end-of-life waste management, scientists at the University of Birmingham, UK, warned in a 2019 Nature paper. -ion ​​batteries in electric vehicles can be a valuable secondary source of materials. In Russia, for example, the Chelyabinsk group of companies Megapolisresurs is engaged in the processing of lithium-ion batteries and batteries, follows from the information on its website.

In Germany, lithium-ion batteries from electric cars have found another use: they are used to store excess energy from wind turbines and solar panels. In 2018, the German WEMAG built the largest 10 MW commercial battery power plant in Europe near Hamburg

The cleanliness of an electric car is directly dependent on the source of energy for recharging, the researchers write. If it is powered by hydropower, wind turbines or solar panels, then the amount of CO2 emissions will be many times lower compared to a conventional car. For example, in European countries, where the share of alternative energy is large, the carbon footprint of an electric car is three times smaller. In India and China, where there are still a lot of coal-fired power plants, the carbon footprint of electric cars is “shorter” than that of cars with internal combustion engines, by 25-40%.

Nuclear energy can also serve as a source of energy for recharging electric vehicles.

In Montenegro, already today, electricity generated from the sun and wind would be enough for a third of the entire fleet. That is, if everyone switched to electric cars, a third would drive “in the sun and wind”.

In sub-zero temperatures, the maximum driving distance is reduced as the car uses more energy to heat the passenger compartment and keep the batteries at operating temperature. Heat also has a similar effect: additional energy is spent on cooling the cabin.

A study by the Geotab portal, which examined data on the trips of 4,200 electric cars from different manufacturers, showed that in real life, the optimal temperature for electric cars is 21.5 ˚С, at which they can even drive a little more on a full charge (by about 10–15%) than stated by the manufacturer. Heat and cold affect the power reserve negatively: at a temperature of plus 40 ˚С, the power reserve is reduced by about 20% of the manufacturer’s declared at these temperatures, and by about 40% at a temperature of minus 20 ˚С.

For example, in northern European Norway, in eight months of 2021, the share of sales of new ICE vehicles fell to a record low of 9.6%. Electric vehicles accounted for 60.1% of the market and hybrids for 30.3% (according to the Norwegian Traffic Information Board, OFV). And this despite the fact that the average winter temperature in the country is minus 6.8 ˚С, and in the north of Norway there are real frosts.

While European manufacturers give an 8-year warranty on batteries, Chinese manufacturers are increasingly using a lifetime warranty. That is, the life of the batteries approaches the life of the car itself.

It is ideal to charge the battery by 80% and discharge to 20%. This is the taxi mode. It is no coincidence that there was information in the news that one taxi driver traveled 1 million kilometers without changing the battery. Batteries really do not like to stay with 100% charge for a long time, and for them a long parking with a discharged battery is simply fatal.

Every electric train has a battery management system that monitors its “health”. When choosing a car, keep in mind that cars with air heating