As people are becoming more concerned with the environment, companies are also becoming more concerned with creating objects that are environmentally friendly because they want to keep their consumers happy and stay in business. One invention that is becoming more popular is electric cars. Electric cars are powered by electric engines and they emit less carbon emissions. One example of an electric car is Tesla.
Tesla:
Tesla is an American car company that was founded in 2003 and that has created an electric car. Tesla launched the Roadster, their first car in 2008 and sold over 2,400 of them. This car could run for 245 miles with a fully charged battery. Tesla has released three other vehicles since then and now has more than 50,000 vehicles on the road worldwide. Tesla vehicles are produced in California, and is expanding in other areas as well.
How it works?
Battery electric vehicles run by using the electricity that is stored in a battery pack. The batteries need to be recharged constantly because these cars are powered entirely by electricity. Because of this they do not produce pollution through the tailpipe but some pollution is produced when the electricity (that runs the cars) is generated. The batteries are recharged using grid electricity either from a charging unit or a wall socket. Tesla cars can be charged at home so owners do not have to spend any money on gasoline. Tesla also has Supercharger networks throughout North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific so people can charge as they are on the road.
Electric Charging Stations:
Tesla has created its own charging system for their cars. The plugs for Tesla cars have a very slim design and that plug can be supported by any outlet. Tesla provides each car with an adaptor for a household plug and also one for the J1772 plug for public Level 2 stations. Tesla has its own version of a Level 3 charging station which they call a supercharger. This supercharger station can fill up a whole battery in less than an hour.
Charging an electric car with an outlet like one found at home that has only 120 volts of electricity would take about 15 hours to charge the battery from empty to enough for 75 miles. Because this would result in a huge inconvenience for people who are driving far, electric charging stations exist. The majority of public stations are level 2, which have 240 volt outlets. it would take about 8 hours to charge a car in full at one of these stations. Level 3 charging stations have 480 volts and will charge the battery from 0% to 80% in around thirty minutes. These charging stations are high-tech and they include pins for data to allow the charger to communicate with the car. The car is able to communicate with the charger, so that the charger knows how much more power the battery needs at any time during the charging process.
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/electric-vehicles/how-do-battery-electric-cars-work#.ViUVCtY-DR0
http://www.teslamotors.com/about
http://www.cnet.com/news/slow-fast-and-faster-where-to-charge-electric-cars/