Electric or Petrol Engine?

Alexander Tekutiev

WRTG101

November 11, 2012

Essay 2 Comparison/ Contrast

Electric or petrol engine?

People have been using cars for ages and filling tanks with gasoline while grumbling about the increasing prices. But now the rising temperature of the earth has posed a threat to our environment. Everyone is talking about going environment friendly by using eco-friendly products and adopting green technologies in our daily life. Going in the same line, the car makers are developing cars that run on eco-friendly technologies such as electric and hybrid cars. But little people know about basic difference between the electric and traditional petrol/diesel cars...

Most people believe that the invention of electric vehicles happened just recently, believing that technical progress had only now made possible building an electric car, but it is not so... The first electric car was constructed in 1841, which is earlier than the emerging of the internal combustion engine! In 1910 New York had 70,000 electric taxis! - Wikipedia (2012). During the formation of car culture - steam, electric and gasoline engines were parallel developed, and in the early 20th century most of the cars were electric, but because of the complex scheme of charging the batteries they gave way to petrol engines that are familiar to us now.

“A petrol combustion engine works on the principle of combustion, or the mixing of the fuel with air to release gasses that cause the vehicle parts to move. The heat energy produced inside the engine is transmitted to propel the outside mechanical parts. These parts transmit the movement across the chassis to finally move the wheels accordingly.”