thumb|right|300px|The General Motors EV1, a hallmark electric car, had a range of with NiMH batteries in 1999. An electric car is an alternative fuel car that uses electric motors and motor controllers instead of an internal combustion engine (ICE). Currently, in most cases, electrical power is derived from battery packs carried on board the vehicle. Other energy storage methods that may come into use in the future include the use of ultracapacitors, or storage of energy in a spinning flywheel.

The term electric vehicle is often used, implying, in context, an electric road vehicle, though in its broader sense it covers all vehicles with electrical propulsion including trains and trams.

Vehicles that make use of both electric motors and other types of engine are known as hybrid electric vehicles and are not considered pure electric vehicles (EVs) because they operate in a charge-sustaining mode. Hybrid vehicles with batteries that can be charged externally from an external source are called plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV), and become pure battery electric vehicles (BEVs) during their charge-depleting mode. Other types of electric vehicles besides cars include light trucks and neighborhood electric vehicles.

History

main: History of the electric vehicle

1830s to 1900s: Early history

image:Jedlik's electric-car.PNG

The design of the electric car is one of the oldest for automobiles — small electric vehicles predate the Otto cycle upon which Diesel (diesel engine) and Benz (gasoline engine) based the automobile. Between 1832 and 1839 (the exact year is uncertain), Scottish businessman Robert Anderson invented the first crude electric carriage. Professor Sibrandus Stratingh of Groningen, the Netherlands, designed the small-scale electric car, built by his assistant Christopher Becker in 1835.

Practical and more successful electric road vehicles were invented by both Thomas Davenport, an American, and Robert Davidson, a Scotsman, in 1842. Both inventors were the first to use non-rechargeable electric cells.

Gaston Plante invented a better storage battery in France in 1865, and his fellow countryman Camille Faure improved the storage battery in 1881. This improved-capacity storage battery paved the way for electric vehicles to flourish. An electric-powered two-wheel cycle was put on display at the World Exhibition 1867 in Paris by the Austrian inventor Franz Kravogl.